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SOCIAL ORIGINS AND SOCIAL 
CONTINUITIES 





e eo. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
WEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., LimiTED 
LONDON + BOMBAY - CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lp. 
TORONTO 





BY vs 
ALFRED MARSTON TOZZER 


Professor of Anthropology, 
Harvard University 


A COURSE OF LECTURES 
DELIVERED BEFORE THE LOWELL INSTITUTE, 
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 
FEBRUARY, 1924. 


Nem York 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1928 


All rights reserved 


Coryricut, 1925, 
Bry THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and electrotyped. 
Published March, 1925. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


“Les peuples les plus civilisés sont 
aussi voisins de la barbarte que le 
fer le plus poli Vest de la rouille. 
Les peuples, comme les métauz, 
nont de brillant que les surfaces.” 


RIVAROL. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/socialoriginssocOOtozz_0 


PREFACE 


AntHropo.ocy is the study of man. It is obviously 
the “proper study of mankind.” This book has not been 
written for the anthropologist, but for the layman who 
desires a knowledge of some of the elementary and fun- 
damental principles and facts concerning the develop- 
ment of man in his relationships with his fellow-beings, 
and who cares to acquaint himself with the general 
points of view of American Anthropology. I feel that 
many sins are committed in the name of this science, 
especially in America. 

The content of these lectures is not, for the most part, 
original research and speculation. It is intended to be 
a presentation of basic facts and admitted hypotheses 
concerning human institutions. To this end an attempt 
has been made to present these lectures with the utmost 
simplicity, without the utilization of cryptic professional 
terminology; and to refrain from ambitious attempts to 
inject into the discussion of stabilized subjects personal 
opinions and pet theories, preferring to offer a practical 
and intelligible multiplication table rather than an ab- 
stract and debatable theory of relativity. Some material 
has been added to the lectures as given, since it was 
found impossible to cover adequately all the subjects 
discussed. 

In 1911 another course of Lowell Lectures in the field 
of anthropology was published. The Mind of Primitive 
Man by Dr. Franz Boas remained for almost ten years 
the sole account of the general American point of view 
towards Anthropology. Since that time, and more espe- 

vil 


viii Preface 


cially during the last four years, several of his students 
have produced books which now cover the field very 
adequately. This book was projected several years ago, 
before we had available the most excellent text on early 
society by Lowie, Kroeber’s near-approach to a general 
text-book for the field of Anthropology, Goldenweiser’s 
able work, and also those of Wissler and others. By my 
delay I have profited greatly from these books. Lowie’s 
Primitive Society covers the whole field of social rela- 
tions in a way I could not hope to do in a course of six 
lectures, and I found myself constantly dependent upon 
many of his theoretical discussions of the social phases 
of early society. 

I am under obligations to Dean Greenough and Dr. 
P. E. Goddard, who have read the manuscript and offered 
several valuable suggestions. 

My greatest thanks, however, are due to my colleague, 
Professor E. A. Hooton, who has inspired several of the 
ideas contained here, and who has unfailingly been will- 
ing to sacrifice time and thought upon the problems that 
have come up. Trained in the European field, he has 
often given me a different point of view. 

I also wish to thank Dr. Edouard Sandoz, Dr. Spinden, 
and Dr. Glover Allen, to whom I have appealed for 
advice on special topics. I have availed myself of the 
material in a large number of books, to which reference 
has been made at the end of the text. 

In the Appendix will be found a collection of Fresh- 
man themes on superstitions, with a few comments. 


CHOCORUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
80 August, 1924. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 
BASIC METHODS AND THEORIES 


INTRODUCTION 
CULTURAL HISTORY OF MAN . 


BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL INHERITANCE 

EUGENICS 

STATURE. 

SPEECH : 
FLIGHT OF BIRDS AND OF MAN 
MISCEGENATION 
HUMAN AND ANIMAL SOCIETIES 

THE SOCIAL INSECTS 


MoNOTYPICAL EVOLUTION . 
THE ‘‘GEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT” } 
MorGaAn’ 2 “SAVAGERY, BARBARISM, AND Civ. 
ZATION” BY 
PHYSICAL EVOLUTION . 


INTERPRETATION OF SIMILAR PHENOMENA . 

PsYCHIC UNITY; CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT EVO- 
LUTION 

DISSEMINATION . 
SIMILARITY OF UNIVERSAL TRAITS Aah 
EARLY TRADE; AMBER AND THE SPIRAL ORNAMENT 
FoLK-TALES; THE Tar BaBy 

1x 


1 
1 
1 


14 
16 


NONOCODBNOOD — = 


16 
17 


We 


18 
18 
18 
19 
20 


x Contents 


CORN CULTURE wil chine ae te 
THE HORSE IN AMERICA 
HeELIouItTuIc ScHOOL . 

PsycHIC UNITY . ; 
TALE OF THE MINK AND THE SUN . 
PHAETHON AND THE PHa@pus APOLLO . 


CRITERIA OF PROGRESS . 
MAN’S CONTROL OVER NATURE. 


SPECIALIZATION, PHYSICALLY AND CULTURALLY . 


HAS MAN PROGRESSED MENTALLY? 

PROGRESS IN THE “FINER THINGS OF LIFE”’. 
CoNTROL OVER HUMAN NATURE 
CARE OF THE POOR AND SICK . 
IMMIGRATION. . ; 

DoES CIVILIZATION eh) | 
MAN’sS CONTROL OVER MAN 

ARE SOCIAL CHANGES PROGRESSIVE? 


CHAPTER II 


21 
21 
22 
25 
25 
26 


28 
28 
29 
29 
30 
30 
3l 
3l 
32 
32 
33 


THE NATURE OF THE SAVAGE AND OF HIS 


SOCIETY 


ORIGIN OF HUMAN SOCIETY 
CoNTRACT THEORY ..... 
ORGANIC THEORY . 


HUMAN SOCIETY NOT AN OUTGROWTH OF ANIMAL 


SOCIETY . é 
PsyCHOLOGICAL THEORY . Hie 
THE HORDE VERSUS THE INDIVIDUAL 


CAUSES UNDERLYING DIVERGENCIES IN CULTURES 


RACIAL: THEORY) a. cro tee) wea a 
TEINVIRONMEINT  o0 02) sod ecu eee teats 


35 
35 
36 


Contents 


SoME EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENT UPON MAN . 
PHYSICAL . 
PsyYCHICAL . 
ETHICAL CODES. 
SACPAL (LIFE cee attr re Asie eros 
BCONOMIC LIFE 22 2 ees. 
INDUSTRIAL ‘LIED Pipi si heee al ees 
RELIGION . 
LANGUAGE . 
MovEMENTS OF PEOPLE . . 
ADAPTABILITY OF MAN TO HIS SINVIRONMENT ; 
EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD. : 
TOO MUCH STRESS LAID ON ENVIRONMENT. 


THE GROUP MIND. ; : 
SoclETY THE RESULT OF PERSONAL UNITS. 


THE SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED MAN. 


INSTINCT ; EAR Be 
DIFFICULTIES IN THIS STUDY. ... .- ears 
THE CONTROL OF INSTINCT BY THE SAVAGE. . . 


SoME CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE MAN 
KEENNESS OF THE SENSES. . .- +--+ +--+: 
ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE . ae 
SUSCEPTIBILITY TO EMOTIONAL STIMULI . 
PLASTICITY OF JUDGMENTS. ....+-++-+-::-* 
PowER OF SUGGESTION . 


INTELLECT . 
PHYSICAL CRITERIA . 4 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CRITERIA ... .- + 
HIsToRY OF CULTURES 
RACIAL PSYCHOLOGY ...--+-+-+-: > 
INTELLIGENCE TESTS ,.. .- - 


xii Contents 


THE ARMY TESTS... . OCS AAR SME bt nce babe at OG 
NEGRO AND WHITE CeTED REN CPA AIA DaM AMEND cae woe 
RURATAUAND URBAN CHILDREN ah ieee ene Te 
INDIAN-WHITE MIXTURDS, |.) lecupe eas ee ene 
TESTS FOR SAVAGE PEOPLES ......... @O 
RANGEZORSINTELUECT a5, ut che Pe ae ne an em a 
RACTAT. PREIJUDICES ile ci ee ee a 
DIFFICULTIES OF SOLUTION .......... @& 
MENTAL. PROCESSES (0). fe) osha ee 
CONSERVATISM (oo Raa ae Be ae eas 


CHAPTER III 
THE CRISES IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 


No TYPICAL SAVAGE. VARIETY OF INTERESTS ... 86 
CP TBS OR PABGAGH ety ch CON e apne eee eats ee anes 
BIRTH. .... PTA Se 8 5) ak dh SD 
Te aera OF WO Eee rtON ae EN ANCL ABO Bb 1.058) ore 
PREGNANGY ee so SU DEN MIRO Pot SL te 
PURIFICATION (00 nO Te TL oe a ae) 
Dee COUPUGE Bek ee ee ES AE OO ana 
SoOGIOLOGICAL BIRTH <i ol betoee ele (UE eee 
DIVINATION ee ee CA cre Oe at oO aa ED 
Rae Tey Cit” ee SIRE Raat ia Ca WNM GeO po eth 
WDUCATION (it he oa Les eee aa 
ADOLESCENCE .... PACT Maar TAe Mgt |! 
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL FACTORS . .. 99 
INITIATION. ... RAN ae erie a ea Roe ti.S 


SmPARATION OF THE SEXES ..........- 101 


Contents 


MOUTILATIONS . Spry Ul 94 

ORDWATS $35 052 00 i Rete nea Ok MRR 
PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES . 

AUSTRALIAN RITE. 

THE MEN’S-HOUSE 

GUARDIAN SPIRITS 

ANALOGIES. 


AIDE vit eaee POEUN EON Nt OMEN gota Crust 
MYTHS” REGARDING DHATH jeu. | rete ato ee 
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL DEATH . 


THE BELIEF IN A HUMAN SOUL 
PROOFS: DREAMS, ETC. 
REALITY OF DREAMS 
CoNCEPTS OF THE SOUL. 
CHARACTER OF THE SOUL . 
THE “LIFE TOKEN” 
SICKNESS AND DEATH . 


BurRIAL RITES . eat AU eI et at 
FEAR OF THE DEAD KINDRED. PRECAUTIONS 
TAKEN . ae Ay 
SPIRITS LINGER ABOUT THE PLACE OF DEATH. 
ATTEMPTS TO HASTEN THEIR DEPARTURE . 
JOURNEY TO THE GRAVE 
METHODS OF BURIAL . 
INHUMATION . 
BuRIAL OF EFFIGY 
PRESERVATION . 
CREMATION 
LOVE OF THE DEAD KINDRED 


MourRNING CUSTOMS 
DURKHEIM’S THEORY yy eal FY 
THE REVERSAL OF THOSE OF EVERY-DAY LIFE . 


xi] 


102 
104 
104 
105 
109 
109 
112 


113 
113 
114 


114 
115 
116 
116 
116 
117 
117 


118 


118 
119 
119 
119 
120 
120 
121 
122 
122 
122 
123 
123 
124 


xiv Contents 


Tue ‘OTHER WORLD” 

LOCATION . 

JOURNEY 

CHARACTER ye 
CONTINUATION THEORY 
IDEA OF CASTE. 
RETRIBUTION THEORY . 

OccuPANTS 


ANCESTOR WORSHIP . 


CHAPTER IV 


MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 


THE FAMILY ANTERIOR TO HUMAN SOCIETY 


Six IN EARLY SOCIETY 2. 20.20% 


THE NATURALNESS OF THE SAVAGE . 


THE MODERN FAMILY . igh ks 
MARRIAGE AND THE SEX IMPULSE 
DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE . 


CLASSICAL IDEAS OF THE FAMILY AND ITS DEVELOP- 


MENT 


EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF THE FAMILY. 


MopERN IDEAS OF THE FAMILY 


ARGUMENTS FAVORING A PREVIOUS STAGE OF PRO- 


MISCUITY 


TALES OF TRAVELLERS AND MISSIONARY AC- 


COUNTS . 

SURVIVALS . ra hars 
LEVIRATE AND SORORATE 
PHALLIC WORSHIP 
Jus prime noctis . 


124 
124 
124 
124 
124 
125 
125 
125 


125 


127 


129 
130 
132 
132 
132 


133 
134 
. 185 


136 


136 
136 
137 
138 
139 


Contents 


GROUP-MARRIAGE . 


CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP 


TERMS . ie 
THEORY OF RIVERS... . 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST PROMISCUITY 

ZOOLOGICAL 
BIOLOGICAL as bee 
PSYCHOLOGICAL.) nee, 


VARIETIES OF THE FORMS OF MARRIAGE. 
MonoGamMy 
POLYANDRY 
POLYGYNY . 


MARRIAGE CONTRACT . alae 35 
CLASSICAL THEORY, WIFE-CAPTURE . 
COMPENSATION . 

EXCHANGE OF KINSWOMEN 

DER VICE! miie wis. aks ayUmiMe 

PURCHASE . BM aN 
HILOPEMENT 260 os eo ke ek 
BETROTHAL: 2 ¢ es foe ss 
MARRIAGE RITES. ..... 
PI EVOROH pice pos bis lene 


LIMITATION OF CHOICE OF MATE . 
UNCEST RULES Ho oS Lio put 
EXOGAMY : 

LocaL EXOGAMY . 
CLAN EXOGAMY are 
AUSTRALIAN MARRIAGE CLASSES 


THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY . 


PREFERENTIAL MATING ........ 
LEVIRATE AND SORORATE . 
CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE . 


Xvi Contents 


MOTHER-RIGHT AND FATHER-RIGHT. ....... 168 
DmADBRSHIP 3/92) 0 SOUS AO 168 
DESCENT AND SUCCESSION. ........ 169 

EXAMPLES OF MOTHER-RIGHT AMONG CIVILIZED 
PROPLES 06.56.0016 V2 ee 170 
INHERITANCE 4080s G6 Ae 172 
JUNIOR RIGHT 3055) 5 30 ck eae 172 
Rpsmence.) reo ee er 173 
PARENT-IN-LAW. TABUS ) CS ee 174 
JACOB) AND HIS (WIVES §).3.000- 0) li 175 

CHAPTER V 

ORGANIZATION, ASSOCIATIONS, AND CLASSES 

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 1. paliueciei ea 180 
LOCAL GROUPS Uni ee ene 181 

THE EARLY ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITIES. . 182 
KINSHIP (GROUPS (fyi! /t7. 1s ren ALIA es 182 
THEE COANE an Mr A Beha 183 
PRIORITY OF FAMILY, CLAN, AND TRIBE. . . 184 
FUNCTIONS Sibi) “cu seh) ee 184 
LOTEMISM | (oy) S020 CU a ae 185 
PHRATRY (OR /MOLNTY » 2 (0) a 187 
IOUNCTIONS $10 7520 4.0 oc ee Pred P74 
OMAHA CAMPING, CIRCLE. .,....... . . . 187 
DUAL ORGANIZATION AND THE CLASSIFICATORY 
SYSTIOM (yh) ih ia Sieh or) as aie ea 187 
TRIBE AND CONFEDERACY. ......... 188 

ASSOCIATIONS 1/32) 20) SWAN Laer aN panei tia fs a 189 
AGH AND SEX\GROUPB././it ee 189 
SECRET SOCIMYING -). 2/7 1.00 alee ante epee 190 


Contents XVll 


HANK AND SOCIAL CLASSES Hat) Ciao) SU WI go 
ABSENCE IN EARLY SOCIETY... . Lites conan Oo 
FACTORS LEADING TO CLASS DISTINCHIONS yy tte cd Oy 
RANK ON THE Nortuwest Coast. ...... 194 

DAE POTLATCH SYSTEM aise ivi Ga e105 
CHAPTER VI 
GOVERNMENT, LAW, AND ETHICS 
COVEN DAENOT 5 (00) St ON Otte ME PID ea aac Lts USN OO) 
CORRELATION BETWEEN FORM OF GOVERNMENT 
AND JSCALE OF: CULTURE Gao suite, ciliate 3 OU) 
THE Iroquois CONFEDERACY ......... 201 
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE INCAS. .... . 207 
AFRICA AND THE KABYLE DEMOCRACY .... . 209 
DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT ..... . 210 
MISTAKEN IDEAS OF ROYALTY ......... 211 
DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP. ....... . 212 
eM iaMAN-HORD Ec Marui MNCs) hy Wah Pat Oy 
IMPORTANCE OF THE CRISIS ........ . 213 
PART PLAYED BY PERSONALITY. ...... . 213 
CRITHRIA FOR’ SELECTION 4) 00s 28 

UAW Seo “Cy nits oe MRIs OM Mth Ye os a RR 
CAVILVAND CRIMINAL DAWU Inn site via hae 216 
ABSENCE OF CENTRAL AUTHORITY. ....... 217 
POWERS TENDING TO ENFORCE LAW ..... .. 217 
JOINT LIABILITY AND BLOOD REVENGE .... . 217 
SETTLEMENT OR COMPOSITION ........ . 219 
(DRTALS ieee h oa. Feo eth owt Oma enenee P'O 

MAGICAT OR) PRIESTIY dt) 20g ren 4919 
PHM YOATHOA eG) Banas gfe (3. al eh gee OOF) 


W ORLDERUMEPHODS A Wiiics iii /anciNal Huber B90 


XVill Contents 


TABU ieirakwn : SLRS og CUR aoe alan Te eae 
Buy erect rene) BACKGROUND |) alice oi heir hed ee eek 
Tr MYSTORY OR! TABU) 00h tue Waele aaa 
ins de erm oe 
MANO Ree rant, ACT Si 2 Po Re Pa acer re 
TRANSMISSIBILITY OF TABU ......... . 228 
POLY NESIAN STA BU vc shi cutea Nae iene aia ert cL colar RR eee 
PPRBUIAND RELIGION (00 circ eee reba ead ear ety ones ee eee 

COLLEGE SUPERSTITIONS) V) ido usin tye ees!) paren 

PUTE IOS Remi ben is ARR SSIES eh ARMED EES 
THe (CHILD AND THH SAVAGE. Vso l,l. eeu 
OBJECTIVE SIDE ALONE TREATED. ........ 201 
THE ETHICAL CODE... . meas) y's 
METHODS OF STUDYING PRIMITIVE MORALITY . . 233 
STANDARDS WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE GROUP. . 234 
Tre DOMESTIC |. VIRTURG 10) 210 ete chee) tye meee 
THE POLITICAL VIRTUBS Lee te oe 
THE SAVAGE UNDER CIVILIZATION... .. . . 2036 
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE ETHICAL CODE .. . . 237 
TRSTS OR CONDUGD Gite saat hina ene take ies) eee 

CONCLUSIONS oie aha et He aa eae A ani tous [cs ae 

APPENDIX 


FRESHMAN THEMES ON SUPERSTITIONS AND 
OTHER BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF SUPERSTITIONS. ...... . 242 


THE DISDAIN OF SOME STUDENTS TOWARDS SUPER- 
SITITIONS o.oo. eA ea, | cS Re EE HERD coe eee 


AGNOSTICISM FREES ONE FROM SUPERSTITIONS. . . 249 


Contents xix 


RELIGION FREES ONE FROM SUPERSTITIONS ... . 246 
THE PRIVACY OF SUPERSTITIONS. ....... . 247 
THE BACKGROUND OF SUPERSTITIONS IN THE MOD- 
BRNGSVORGD 600i vn ye aN cere ea eag: 
THE USUAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS SUPERSTITIONS. . . 248 
SUPERSTITIONS EXPRESS PERSONALITY. ..... . 249 
ISNOCKING ON) WOOD. Homnanantieradian chien ce tentew NCD) 
LIGHTING THREE CIGARETTES WITH ONE MATCH . . 251 
THE DESIRE TO EXPLAIN SUPERSTITIONS. . ... . 252 
PDSEOCCDLODIET: HOC. LMC UTR TUN Nanay MerA GCM RUNSS NO f Y 40) Poe 
SUPERSTITIONS AT EXAMINATIONS. ....... . 255 
SUPERSTITIONS OF ATHLETES. ......... . 255 
EXHAUSTION OF THE POWER OF A FETISH. ... . 259 
AR OYHIAN: PHYLACTIERY) {.s27) rou mir Gini Glee) be 2BO 
DTVINATORY: PRACTICES (1.172 bye eae Olas ar eee DBO 
DLUMBRALS AM mein it lol ay sae aenaMeM syn INE ING og OED 
THE DANGER OF SUPERSTITIONS ........ . 263 
ISSUANCE SAND SRHYTHM tiation RR 
PELE aPEL UN OH aio mints \ cu uh Un cate mean tiasas eae el AL kite! ORM 
SIGNS AS FETISHES cium ee eS IE Dunit, Sone uO ee ORR 
TRIBULATIONS OF BEING BORN ON FrRipAy ... . 265 


CONCLUSIONS ace ae DE CURD ethno ae Pe OG 


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CHAPTER I 


BASIC METHODS AND THEORIES 


AnturopoLocy has been called “Pre-History.” This is 
true insofar as Archeology has played a part in pushing 
back the knowledge of the beginnings of the great move- 
ments centering in the Mediterranean. Our acquaintance 
with the factors working together to bring about the 
great civilizations of Egypt and of Greece is an intimate 
one, owing to the remarkable advance made in the study 
of prehistoric Archeology, which is one of the fields of 
Anthropology. 

The “reel of history,” as Giddings expresses it, is com- 
plete. The broken bits of film have now been, for the 
most part, repaired, and we have a continuous story of 
civilized man and of his immediate antecedents, 

Another field of Anthropology is the study of con- 
temporaneous peoples living under primitive conditions, 
and here we have no reel, but a series of “snap-shots,” 
each giving a static picture of a moment, and but a 
moment, in the life of a people. There is no continuous 
series, no uninterrupted succession of views, and there is 
always a danger in filling in these scenes from such 
sources as pure imagination, the opinions, often biased, 
of the missionary, or the distorted account of the cursory 
traveller in search of the picturesque. 

When the question of origins is considered, the view is 
nebulous to a great extent. Prehistoric Archeology 

. ‘ ° ° . 
gives us a fairly complete picture of the physical forms 
1 


2 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


of early man. From this study we also learn of those 
early industries which are based upon the use of imper- 
ishable material. We ascertain also the burial customs, 
with their implications of the ideas of the future life. 
Nine-tenths of the objects in a museum of Prehistoric 
Archeology come from graves, all placed there to provide 
for the comfort and welfare of the souls of the dead. 
But most of the other features of the cultural life of early 
man are lacking from the archeological picture. We are 
forced to piece together our views of present-day peoples 
living under primitive conditions and try in this way to 
repair the defect in our knowledge of the origins of social 
life. This line of reasoning is a dangerous one at best, 
and it should be undertaken only with the greatest care. 

A word should be said regarding the data used in our 
investigations. There are data from the point of view 
of time, primitive in the real sense of the term. But 
knowledge derived from the study of archeology and 
human paleontology does not help us much in the 
present study. ‘Then there arc data from the point of 
view of culture, thc examination of savage life which is 
to be seen at the present time or was in evidence over 
large areas of the world before the out-pouring of the 
White races in their search for domination and their 
zeal in propagating the Christian faith. Exception might 
well be taken to the word “primitive” as applied to living 
peoples. The term is used here in its derived sense of 
rude and uncultured. 

Thomas has stated that “tribal society is virtually 
delayed civilization, and the savages are a sort of con- 
temporaneous ancestry.” It is this contemporaneous 
ancestry that will be treated here. It is well to clear 
away some of the dc»ris from the roots of this ancestral 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 3 


tree, and to show that the higher growth which we see 
all about us can be traced back to the same roots by 
branches, not often straight, more often crooked and full 
of forks and curious turns. In fact, I suspect that our 
tree is a banyan, which sends branches in all directions,— 
some up, many hanging in the air, and others falling to 
the ground to become new roots. 

To change the figure, I wish to “reconstruct, as far as 
possible, the embryology of the various states of society,” 
and to show the continuity of human achievement on 
the social side from the savage to civilized man. The 
greater part of the world now accepts the continuity of 
growth of the physical structure of man, beginning in 
an ape-like ancestor and leading by steps that are 
perhaps less definite than once they were thought to be, 
to man at the end of Paleolithic time, 10,000 or more 
years ago, since which time he has remained physically 
almost at a standstill. 

The so-called recapitulation theory in embryology 
holds that the foetus in its development passes through 
certain morphological phases that represent actual steps 
of the evolution of his several ancestors. In other words, 
“the individual climbs up his own ancestral tree.” At 4 
certain period the human embryo has, for example, gill 
slits, recalling the fact that all vertebrates have de- 
scended from fishes; at a later stage a tail projects from 
the embryonic trunk, indicative of higher stages of 
animal development. But all of man’s ancestral forms 
do not manifest themselves in his embryonic growth. 
Many are suppressed, others elided or exaggerated. 
Similarly, our analyses and studies of the social and 
cultural life of anthropoids, and of ancient and modern 
primitive peoples, must be made cautiously, in the hope 


4 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


that we may compose from their disjecta membra an im- 
perfect but mainly correct recapitulation of man’s cul- 
tural and social ancestral forms. 


CuLTuRAL History or Man 


The cultural history of man is, however, quite a differ- 
ent story from that of his physical body. His civilization 
can be said to have been well started only about the time 
when he became physically similar to what he is today. 
For about forty-nine-fiftieths of man’s existence he had 
no agricultural life, no domestic animals, and only the 
crudest of industries. Assuming that a single generation 
of men had accumulated in fifty years all that we call 
civilization, and that these men started absolutely un- 
civilized, Robinson has said that it would take them 
forty-nine years to give up their ancient habits of wan- 
dering hunters and settle down to till the soil, harvest 
their crops, domesticate animals and practice weaving. 
“Six months later, or half through the fiftieth year, some 
of them, in a particularly favorable situation, would 
have invented writing and thus established a new and 
wonderful means of spreading and perpetuating civiliza- 
tion. Three months later another group would have 
carried literature, art, and philosophy to a high degree 
of refinement and set standards for the succeeding weeks. 
For two months our generation would have been living 
under the blessings of Christianity; the printing press 
would be but a fortnight old and they would not have 
had the steam engine for quite a week. For two or three 
days they would have been hastening around the globe in 
steamships and railroad trains, and only yesterday would 
they have come upon the magical possibilities of elec- 
tricity. Within the last few hours they would have 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 5 


learned to sail in the air and beneath the waters.”’1 This 
picture, exaggerated if you will, does certainly show the 
relative modernity of our cultural life, and the almost 
unbelievable slowness of man’s beginnings. It is only 
when a certain point is reached that there is any mo- 
mentum to his cultural advance. 

“One might compare,” writes Kroeber, “the inception 
of civilization to the end of the process of slowly heating 
water. The expansion of the liquid goes on a long time. 
Its alteration can be observed by the thermometer as 
well as in bulk, in its solvent power as well as in its 
internal agitation. But it remains water. Finally, how- 
ever, the boiling-point is attained. Steam is produced: 
the rate of enlargement of volume is increased a thou- 
sandfold; and in place of a glistening, percolating fluid, 
a volatile zas diffuses invisibly. Neither the laws of 
physics nor those of chemistry are violated; nature is 
not set aside; but yet a saltation has taken place: the 
slow transitions that accumulated from zero to one hun- 
dred have been transcended in an instant, and a condition 
of substance with new properties and new possibilities 
of effect is in existence.” ? 

Civilization and society may be likened to a great 
snowball rolling downhill with accelerating rapidity, 
and increasing in magnitude all the time. The savage 
it was who moulded the core of this cultural sphere and 
with painful effort rolled it up the long ascent until it 
topped the rise. Now that gravity and momentum are 
with us, our task is only to direct its course. The 
snowball is still made of snow; its core is still within, 
and there is no less admixture of dirt than in its 
inception. 


6 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL INHERITANCE 


To return once more to those contemporaneous ances- 
tors: We look upon our progenitors as furnishing us 
with our bodily peculiarities, and we often ascribe to 
the members of our immediate family many of our ways 
of speech and of action. A sharp distinction should be 
made between these two kinds of ie Nan as —the bio- 
tural, hae which we ‘inherit, by. ‘social. contact: between 
what Spencer calls the organic and the super-organic. 

The fallacy in the reasoning of certain eugenicists is 
due to this lack of differentiation between these two 
forms of inheritance. Eugenics attempts to provide 
better men and women through improved methods of 
interbreeding. Some students of this subject go further 
and assume characteristics as congenital which are 
gained through social contact. The first problem of the 
eugenicist is to separate those characteristics of mankind 
which are inherited from those which are acquired 
through his social and physical environment. This he 
has often failed to do. It is perfectly clear that only 
those features that are hereditary can be affected by 
eugenic selection, and these congenital features play a 
surprisingly small part in the cultural life of man.’ 

Take an example drawn from the physical side. We 
inherit a certain stature from our ancestors, but stature 
is also affected by nourishment. All over Europe so- 
called “misery spots” occur, where the soil produces 
poor crops and where the average stature falls below 
that of the surrounding country. Low stature here is 
not a question of race but of environment. Children 
born in these regions who remove to more favorable 


Social Origins and Social Continuities OT 


localities attain a higher stature than those who remain 
in the area of poor soil. Some occupations also affect 
stature. Thus stature_is one of the characteristics of 
man which is determined both by inheritance and by 
‘€nvironment.‘ a 

It is now generally admitted that “for all practical 
purposes” traits acquired during the life of a single 
individual are not transmitted. Whether influences 
brought to bear on a long series of generations may be 
handed down congenitally is a question still debatable. 

The method of those who profess to discover from 
physical features the vocation suitable for an individual 
is based upon false premises, confusing the physical with 
the mental in much the same way as the congenital is 
mistaken for the cultural. Many of the schools of voca- 
tional guidance are but a revival of the long-ago-discred- 
ited “science of phrenology,” extended to include the 
features of the face, as well as the shape of the skull. 

Let us consider in detail some examples of cultural 
inheritance which are sometimes mistaken for biological 
inheritance. 

Speech is inherent in man in the sense that he is pro- 
vided with the organs of vocalization and articulation,— 
“the mechanism of speech”; but language itself is an 
acquired characteristic. An illustration, often used, to 
show this failure to understand that language is acquired 
is the tale told by Herodotus. 

“Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king 
Psammetichus, believed themselves to be the most an- 
cient of mankind. Since Psammetichus, however, made 
the attempt to discover who were actually the primitive 
race, they have been of opinion that while they sur- 
pass all other nations, the Phrygians surpass them 


8 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


in antiquity. This king, finding it impossible to make 
out by dint of inquiry what men were the most ancient, 
contrived the following method of discovery:—He took 
two children of the common sort, and gave them over to 
a herdsman to bring up at his folds, strictly charging 
him to let no one utter a word in their presence, but to 
keep them in a sequestered cottage, and from time to 
time introduce goats to their apartment, see that they 
got their fill of milk, and in all other respects look after 
them. His object herein was to know, after the indis- 
tinct babblings of infancy were over, what word they 
would first articulate. It happened as he had antici- 
pated. The herdsman obeyed his orders for two years, 
and at the end of that time, on his one day opening the 
door of their room and going in, the children both ran up 
to him with outstretched arms, and distinctly said, 
‘Becos.’? When this first happened the herdsman took no 
notice; but afterwards when he observed on coming often 
to see after them, that the word was constantly in their 
mouths, he informed his lord, and by his command 
brought the children into his presence. Psammetichus 
then himself heard them say the word, upon which he 
proceeded to make inquiry what people there was who 
called anything ‘becos’, and hereupon he learnt that 
‘becos’ was the Phrygian name for bread. In considera- 
tion of this circumstance the Egyptians yielded their 
claims, and admitted the greater antiquity of the Phryg- 
1ans. 

“That these were the real facts I learnt at Memphis, 
from the priests of Vulcan. The Greeks, among other 
foolish tales, relate that Psammetichus had the children 
brought up by women whose tongues he had previously 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 0 


cut out; but the priests said their bringing up was such 
as I have stated above.” 5 

There is a double assumption here: first, that speech 
is inherited congenitally; and, second, that the earliest 
type of language must be the one produced by these 
children automatically, as it were. The absolute failure 
of a child of English-speaking parents to speak English 
when brought up from infancy exclusively in a French- 
speaking household is a trite example of the fact that 
speech is acquired. The articulate speech of man and 
the so-called speech of animals are entirely distinct. 
The inarticulate ejaculations of man alone are in the 
same category as the sounds made by animals. 

Culture is a process of accumulation; the old may be 
retained and the new—an invention, for example—is 
shared alike by all the companions of the originator. A 
new trait in the biological world is usually obtained 
owing to a loss or a modification of the old. 

This is brought out very clearly in the question of the 
power of flight,—inherited by animals, learned by man. 
There are gliders and fliers in the world of animals. 
The flying fish are gliders, obtaining a momentum by 
hitting the surface of the water with the tail. The 
pterodactyl, an extinct reptile, with a spread of eighteen 
feet, was probably a glider. Some of the birds are better 
gliders than fliers. The albatross is like an engineless 
airplane; it spreads its wings on a hilltop and, facing 
the wind, runs down the hill to get a start. Among the 
mammals, the bat is a flier; certain species of squirrels 
are gliders. Each has evolved its own system of wings; 
the pterodactyl had an elongated fourth finger to which 
was spread a membrane; the feathers of the bird form 
wings attached to the hand and arm bones; the bat has 


10 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


a membrane not only between his fingers, but from 
fingers to feet and from feet to tail; the squirrel has its 
wing between the fore and hind legs with his tail used 
to “pancake.” The same principle of physics is in- 
volved in human flight,—the problem of suspension of a 
body heavier than air. The birds have been studied by 
man in his attempts at flight, from the days of Leonardo 
da Vinci to the present time. The birds lost certain 
faculties when they developed wings, and a few of the 
vertebrates, the bats for example, went through struc- 
tural changes of an extensive nature, losing entirely 
the power of terrestrial locomotion. They renounced 
their arms and legs for this change. Man in his learning 
to fly has renounced nothing. No changes have been 
necessary in his body nor in the functions of his body. 
So it is with culture, a gradual accumulation of new 
ideas, new inventions, one leading to another and all 
alike serviceable to all mankind. They are not limited, 
as is the case with changes in bodily function and 
structure, to a single line of descendants. These 
changes in animals were brought about by necessity. 
The struggle for life in the air may have been less than 
that on the ground. If food was obtained in trees and 
danger was on the ground, the flying squirrel could go 
from tree to tree with no need of descending. Man did 
not develop flight from need, although this is often a 
factor in the development of new devices. Finally, take 
the question of time; millions of years were necessary 
to evolve flying birds from reptiles, and possibly more 
millions to mark off the bat from the other mammals. 
It was only twenty-one years ago that the Wrights made 
their first real flight, which lasted fifty-nine seconds. 
Another example of this failure to recognize the differ- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 11 


ence between the biological and the social inheritance 
is the rather wide-spread opinion that miscegenation be- 
tween certain races results badly, whereas race-mixture 
among other peoples is to be encouraged. There are no 
definite scientific data available which show that there 
are any important biological differences in the races of 
man, resulting in mixtures which in some cases can be 
classed as good and in others as bad. The good and bad 
results coming from certain mixtures are derived, so far 
as we now know, from the physical and mental character 
of the individuals concerned, and have little or nothing to 
do with racial factors. The social status of the classes 
in the races that intermarry plays an important part in 
the results of miscegenation. The Eurasian is usually 
cited as an example of a racial mixture which leads to a 
poor quality of offspring. The Hindu woman who so 
far forgets her caste as to marry a white man, and the 
white man who finds it possible to marry a Hindu, both 
usually belong in a social class below the average of each 
race. East thinks that, genetically, race-mixture is 
dangerous when two human stocks with equivalent 
hereditary endowments are considered, and that mis- 
cegenation is doubly dangerous when races differ in 
innate qualities. His argument is based mainly on the 
results of animal breeding. The evils coming from such 
mixtures among animals have not been proved for man. 

Miscegenation between two diverse stocks is shown in 
a recent examination by H. Shapiro, Fellow of the Bishop 
Museum of Honolulu, of the inhabitants of Norfolk 
Island in the southern Pacific, the descendants of the 
mutineers of the “Bounty.” The present people living 
there are the results of a mixture between British sailors 
and Tahitian women. He reports that after five genera- 


12 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


tions of very close inbreeding the physical results show 
no deterioration whatsoever but, on the contrary, the 
height and weight have increased over that of both parent 
stocks. He also informs me that he is convinced that 
there has been no mental deterioration. It should be 
remembered that the most diverse peoples have 
mingled since prehistoric times, and that these combina- 
tions have usually resulted in virile races. 

Much has been written regarding the similarities be- 
tween human and animal societies. Literature is full of 
the analogies between man and the animals. Democritus 
in the 154th fragment of his “Golden Sayings” writes: 
“In matters of great weight, go to school with the ani- 
mals, Learn spinning and weaving from the spider, 
architecture from the swallow, singing from the swan 
and the nightingale.” As one anonymous writer has 
pointed out, our forefathers sent the sluggard to the ant, 
a popinjay to the worm, a clown to the cow, and a fool 
to the owl. Even the flowers are drawn upon for human 
virtues: the violets are modest, the lilies are pure, and 
the roses passionate. 

Professor Wheeler states in his book on Social Life 
Among the Insects: “The social insects . . . represent 
Nature’s most startling efforts in communal organiza- 
tion and have therefore been held up to us since the 
days of Solomon as eminently worth imitating.” He 
then goes on to draw some very striking parallels be- 
tween human society and that of the social insects, 
they bequeath real estate, nests, pastures, and hunting | 
grounds; they use their larve as shuttles in weaving the 
walls of their nests,—a suggestion, at least, of a parallel 
for the tools of man; they perform marvelous engineer- 
ing feats: “our close rivals in controlling the inorganic 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 13 


environment. ... They are the only animals besides 
ourselves that have succeeded in domesticating other 
animals and enslaving their kind.’ 7 

These parallels, it must be confessed, are dramatic 
and appeal to the imagination; but they do not mean 
very much when the acquired characteristics of human 
society are considered. 

The ants are social only in the biological sense. Their 
activities are indeed marvelous, their industry stupen- 
dous, but each movement is predestined by their organic 
constitution. They learn nothing new, their “culture” 
has been the same for at least fifty million years, with 
no additions or changes. No influences of a non-organic 
nature are ever felt. Human society is of an entirely 
different order. “Take a couple of ant eggs of the right 
sex—unhatched eggs, freshly laid. Blot out every in- 
dividual and every other egg of the species. Give the 
pair a little attention as regards warmth, moisture, pro- 
tection, and food. The whole of ant ‘society,’ every one 
of the abilities, powers, accomplishments, and activities 
of the species, each ‘thought’ that it has ever had, will 
be reproduced, and reproduced without diminution, in 
one generation.” Hear what Graham Wallas has to 
say regarding the supposition that human culture be 
blotted out: “If the earth were struck by one of Mr. 
Wells’s comets, and if, in consequence, every human 
being now alive were to lose all the knowledge and 
habits which he had acquired from preceding generations 
(though retaining unchanged all his own powers of in- 
vention and memory and habituation), nine-tenths of the 
inhabitants of London or New York would be dead in a 
month, and 99 per cent. of the remaining tenth would be 
dead in six months. They would have no language to 


14 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


express their thoughts. . . . They could not read notices, 
or drive motors or horses. They would wander about, 
led by the inarticulate cries of a few naturally dominant 
individuals, drowning themselves, as thirst came on, .. . 
looting those shops where the smell of decaying food 
attracted them, and perhaps at the end stumbling on 
the expedient of cannibalism. Even in the country dis- 
tricts, men could not invent, in time to preserve their 
lives, methods of growing food, or taming animals, or 
making fire, or so clothing themselves as to endure a 
northern winter. ... We have become, one may say, 
biologically parasitic upon our social heritage.” ® 

The social insects are a purely biological group, and 
nothing more; man is a biological group and something 
so much more that the purely physical, outside the needs 
for perpetuation and preservation, is of comparatively 
little importance in his cultural life. 


MonotypicaL Evo.LutTion 


Granting the thesis that the nature of physical and 
cultural changes is entirely distinct, have we any right 
to speak of cultural evolution? This is possible if we 
understand by this term successions of forms, one lead- 
ing to another, but we should also recognize the fact 
that there is no single line in the evolution of culture. 

Many attempts have been made, however, to classify 
society into a number of distinct stages. This can be 
done only in a most general way. It is perhaps possible 
to say that man first developed tools, then domesticated 
his food supply in the animal and plant world, and 
finally domesticated power,—steam, electricity, and 
chemical elements. But there is often a failure to make 
a sharp distinction between the organic and the cultural 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 15 


in the attempt to explain social changes on the basis of 
a single evolutionary theory. 

It was quite natural for sociologists of the last half of 
the last century to conclude that, as the physical forms 
of man and of animals were thought to be linked to- 
gether in a single series, so the social life of animals and 
of man was a single line of advance. We have in this, 
the single evolutionary series for the cultural stages of 
man, a single stairway up which all mankind is ascend- 
ing. If a people find themselves on the third step, for 
example, it is because they have climbed the first two 
and are about to ascend to step four in the series. This 
evolutionary point of view is reflected in the works of 
authors on art and industries, religion and language, as 
well as on man’s social life. According to this idea, man 
begins with realistic art and passes in definite stages 
through conventionalized to geometric forms. It can 
easily be shown that this movement may be in the 
opposite direction, a geometric figure changing into a 
realistic one. The desire to humanize makes a man’s 
face in the circular moon, a skin tepee out of a triangle. 
Man, according to the monotypical evolutionary theory, 
is first a hunter, then a pastoral nomad, and finally an 
agriculturist. Basketry always preceded pottery in the 
order of industrial development. Take the social side: 
first we have promiscuity, followed by polyandry, 
polygyny or polygamy, with monogamy at the end of the 
series; or, again, promiscuity and polyandry with 
mother-right, followed by polygyny and father-right. 
There is always a definite series of stopping-places which 
the traveller passes in succession with no shortcuts and 
no detours. 

Before attempting to show that this monotypical evo- 


16 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


lutionary theory cannot be reconciled to the facts as we 
find them, let us consider one final point advanced to 
substantiate this theory. Tylor calls it the “geological 
argument.” Just as the strata of the earth succeed each 
other in a definite series, so the strata of human society 
follow one another in an orderly manner. This is in 
spite of differences in race and language. Morgan, using 
the geological parallel, subdivides each of his terms 
Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization, into lower, 
middle, and upper groups. Thus Middle Savagery be- 
gins with the acquisition of fire, Upper Savagery with 
the use of the bow and arrow. A Barbarian is distin- 
guished from a Savage by his use of pottery, a Barbarian 
in the middle stratum has domestic animals if he lives 
in the Old World, or cultivates maize if he happens to 
live on this continent. Iron puts a people into the 
upper grade of Barbarism, and an alphabet takes them 
out of the Barbarian class and places them in the cate- 
gory of civilized peoples.® 

By these criteria a Polynesian and an Australian 
would be placed in the same group. In reality, they are 
at opposite poles of primitive society. The use of iron 
as a test would push the West African ahead of the 
Cretan of Minoan times. It is needless to enlarge upon 
the artificiality of this method of classification. Many 
other authors have followed the same line of reasoning; 
each stage of advance is marked by a definite correla- 
tion with a complex of material and social ideas; each 
variety of environment produces more or less definite 
characteristics appearing in a precise series. 

There is no attempt here to deny that there are im- 
portant changes of culture, evolutions of culture, if you 
will; but not a single typical line of advance. Culture 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 17 


cannot be pigeon-holed. There is no single formula 
for culture. The customs of a given people should be 
studied as a whole in their context, and this is possible 
only by the historical method. The factors of indi- 
vidual intelligence, thought, reason, and inventive powers, 
in the development of institutions and customs, are too 
rarely taken into account. 

I have intimated the single evolutionary series 
through which man has gone on the physical side. Owing 
to several of the late discoveries of early types of man 
in Europe, there is strong reason to suppose that even 
on the physical side man did not have a monotypical 
evolution. Certain fairly well developed types of human 
skulls, such as the Piltdown and possibly the Galley Hill 
man, are encountered in the same early geological 
horizon as that which contains forms of man far lower 
in physical development. It is now almost impossible 
to reconstruct an ancestral tree without a large number 
of dead branches. We can, then, sum up by saying that 
early man’s social history has not been along a single 
line of development. 


INTERPRETATION OF SIMILAR PHENOMENA 


In spite of the fact that we do not find a single evolu- 
tionary line of cultural forms, the world is full of 
examples of customs that appear similar. This re- 
semblance may be a fundamental one or it may be super- 
ficial. How are these similarities to be explained? If 
there were a monotypical evolution of cultural traits, 
similar customs might well be interpreted in the same 
way, as the assumption of an identical historical back- 
ground is fundamental to this theory. 

We deny once more a universal identity in cultural 


18 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


evolution, but there is no doubt that we do find in some 
cases identical psychological, environmental, and cul- 
tural conditions producing similar customs. The forces 
necessary to bring this about are so varied and so numer- 
ous that an absolute parallel is by no means frequent. 
In this case we start with similar customs and end with 
similar results. This process is often called “psychic 
unity,” or parallel evolution: a uniform mental, cultural, 
and environmental background producing customs that 
are, for all practical purposes, identical. We may find, 
on the other hand, that features that appear similar 
may have had a very different history leading back to 
dissimilar beginnings. This has often been called “con- 
vergent evolution.” On the physical side the anthropoid 
apes, when compared among themselves, present a good 
example of this type. 

The reverse of this is the argument that dissimilarity 
may arise from beginnings that are similar. We find, 
in this case, uniform beginnings developing along dif- 
ferent lines, “divergent evolution.” Man compared with 
the anthropoids furnishes an illustration of this. 

So we have similar beginnings with similar endings, 
dissimilar beginnings with similar endings, similar be- 
ginnings with dissimilar endings, and dissimilar begin- 
nings with dissimilar endings,—truly a confusing num- 
ber of processes. 

A far more obvious way to explain similarity in 
features of cultural life is by means of contact, dis- 
semination of ideas from people to people. Let us con- 
sider this in some detail. Speech, fire, and some variety 
of cutting-implement are found among all peoples, and 
these acquisitions seem to have been in the possession of 
man as long as man has been man. To these might 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 19 


possibly be added: the belief that the world is peopled 
by spirits or souls; usually called Animism; certain forms 
of magic; string of some kind, and knots; and the domes- 
ticated dog. These are all world-wide in distribution. 
The general level of early man’s mental ability, “the 
identity of the primary needs of life,” and the more or 
less similar features of his environment make it evident 
that many of the features just mentioned were uni- 
versally distributed among all peoples at a very early 
time in man’s history, before his wanderings took place 
from his single cradle-land or, as data may come to be 
interpreted, from his several cradle-lands.1° There is an 
increasing amount of evidence that seems to show, as 
already pointed out, several different lines of develop- 
ment on the physical side, and a corollary to this would 
be a multiple origin for mankind, the resuscitated theory 
of the polygenist. 

Leaving behind these beginnings, shared by all man- 
kind, it is well to consider in some detail the migration 
of ideas and of commodities of a more complicated 
nature from people to people. The study of Archeology 
has revealed the early and wide extent of trade. Amber 
beads found in graves scattered over a great part of 
Europe show that from the end of Neolithic times on- 
ward through the Bronze and Iron ages great trade 
routes were open, starting at the source of this amber 
on the west coast of Denmark and the southern shores 
of the Baltic, and reaching the Adriatic, and thence by 
water to all parts of the Mediterranean. Etruscan 
remains found in Brittany, England, and Ireland, as 
well as in Denmark and northern Germany, show trade 
in the opposite direction. The products of the Augean 
civilization traveled long distances northward connect- 


20 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


ing Switzerland, Bohemia, parts of Austria Hungary, and 
the lower Danube with Hissarlik, Cyprus, and the 
Cylades. Remains have been found in Spain which can 
be traced to the earlier settlements of Troy. 

The same wide-spread distribution of the spiral orna- 
ment also shows extensive migration. It is undoubt- 
edly derived from the technique of bronze-working, the 
spiral wire in bronze furnishing the idea for its use in 
other mediums. It is first found on a common form of 
scarab decoration in the XIIth Dynasty in Egypt. It 
reached Crete before 2000 B.C., and like many other 
Cretan forms, it spread to the mainland and to the other 
islands. It is found on Neolithic pottery in Bosnia, from 
which it followed the amber routes along the Elbe to the 
North Sea shores of Jutland, thence into Scandinavia. 
It reached Spain and France and as far as the British 
Isles early in the Bronze Age. This same ornament also 
travelled northeast beyond the Carpathian Mountains. 

Folk-tales illustrate perhaps better than anything else 
the facts of wide-spread dissemination. Everyone is 
familiar with the Brer Rabbit stories told by Uncle 
Remus and his faithful chronicler, Joel Chandler Harris. 
These have long been considered entirely negro in origin, 
but the Tar Baby story, for example, is found in regions 
where the negro is a negligible factor in the population, 
as in Mexico and the Philippines.12 Espinosa and Boas 
have been able to prove that these stories are not at all 
negro in origin, but come from Spain and Portugal. The 
Portuguese knew the whole of the Guinea Coast of Africa 
as early as 1480, and it was they who carried these 
stories to the negroes, who, in turn, brought them 
to America. The Spaniards carried them directly to 
Mexico and to the Philippines. In the same way many 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 21 


of the Indian tales of eastern Canada are found, on care- 
ful examination, to be the same French fables as those 
collected by La Fontaine in the seventeenth century. 
An Indian background and point of view disguise these 
ancient French tales until they are sometimes almost 
unrecognizable. 

It is not necessary for two peoples to be in the same 
stage of culture in order to share ideas, nor is it true that 
a more highly cultured people will never profit from cus- 
toms of men on a lower level. Necessity makes borrow- 
ing possible, however different the planes of life may be. 
The spread of the corn culture of the American Indian 
among the early colonists of this country is a surprising 
example of this fact. The white settler “did not simply 
borrow the maize seed and then in conformity with his 
already established agricultural methods, or on original 
lines, develop a maize culture of his own. In fact, he 
has no basis for any claims to originality except in the 
development of mechanical appliances.” He planted 
four or five grains in hills about three feet apart, hoeing 
the earth around it. He husked it with a pin of bone 
or of wood. He placed it in cribs elevated from the 
ground. Still following the Indian customs, he used fish 
for fertilization, and his preparation of the corn and its 
cooking were still along aboriginal lines. Corn was un- 
known in the Old World prior to the discovery of 
America, but it is mentioned in Europe in 1539, and had 
reached as far as China only a few years later.}% 

The spread of the horse in America is another example, 
often cited, to show the rapid conquest of a new idea. 
The typical Indian of the Great Plains is almost always 
shown in painting and in sculpture as riding on a horse, 
and yet the horse was probably unknown among the buf- 


22 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


falo-hunting Indians until about the beginning of the 
seventeenth century.* 

In each of the preceding examples of widely-spread 
identities or similarities of customs, there is in every 
case an historical basis for explaining them as the result 
of borrowing. With the absence of physical barriers, 
and taking into account the feeble means of communica- 
tion in early times, the spread of new ideas and of 
foreign commodities was very extensive. 

There is another kind of similarity, where a common 
historical background is not present. In this class 
customs appear as identical although occurring sporadi- 
cally over the world and separated by wide areas where 
the idea is entirely absent. There is a long list of these: 
burial rites, exogamy, folk-tales and myths, stories of 
an eclipse, mother-in-law tabu, human sacrifice, bronze 
and iron working, the beginnings of writing, the use of 
a zero, and many others. 

The simplest way to explain these similarities is, 
again, to attribute them to dissemination from a single 
center, with the corollary that the custom has been lost 
in the intervening areas where it is not now found. 
This is the argument used by the Rivers-Elliot-Smith 
School. The so-called ‘Heliolithic Culture” of Elliot 
Smith was made popular by Wells in his Outline of 
History. This school in general denies that the inven- 
tion of a new idea can occur more than once.!® 

The ‘Heliolithic Culture” consists of a number of 
definite customs, a few of which are: circumcision, the 
couvade or the lying-in of the father, the erection of 
great stone monuments, irrigation works, sun and serpent 
worship, mummification, the artificial deformation of the 
head, tattooing, and the swastica design. Elliot Smith 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 23 


places various kinds of dots on a map of the world, each 
variety designating one of these practices. Wherever 
one or more of these customs is found, it is to be traced 
back to Egypt as a center of dispersal. It took from 
2000 to 3000 years for Egypt to assemble this list of in- 
ventions, and then a group set out about 800 B.C. to 
Heliolithize the rest of the world. Curiously enough, 
they dropped the idea of embalming in one place, of cir- 
cumcision in another, and sunworship was taught in still 
another. Very rarely do we find that they deigned to 
supply any one people with the benefit of all their ideas. 
They were far more generous to the American aborigines 
than to many of the peoples in the intervening areas. 

If a people in Central America started about the begin- 
ning of the Christian Era to set up stone monuments on 
which to present their elaborate system of hieroglyphic 
writing, the idea of erecting the stele came to them from 
Egypt. If the Incas prepared the bodies of their dead, 
buried them in dry sand, and mummification resulted, 
the idea was not original with them but can be traced 
back to Egypt. 

This method of explaining superficial similarities as 
always due to contact goes back to the time of the 
Greeks. As Ferguson has pointed out, “The ancients 
were prone to consider all the circumcised peoples with 
whom they were acquainted, for example the Colchians 
and the Jews, as descendants of the Egyptians; and the 
Christian missionaries, better versed in the Bible than in 
anthropology, have been found predisposed to regard 
the circumcised Bantus of Central and South Africa as 
being in some mysterious fashion derived from the Lost 
Tribes of Israel.’ 16 

Similarities in customs, in ornaments, and in designs, 


24 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


are always spectacular and appeal strongly to the imag- 
ination. The dilettante can always see resemblances 
and draw conclusions of contact. The defects of this 
method of thought are many: customs are torn from 
their context, and no attempt is made to obtain the 
historical background of each practice. Similarities may 
be due, as has already been pointed out, to convergent 
evolution or to similar inventions at different times and at 
different places. The means whereby these different 
customs are carried across oceans is not considered by 
adherents of this theory. The urge for this world-wide 
migration is due, according to Perry, a disciple of Elliot 
Smith, to the search for pearls and gold. Thus these 
immigrants came into the Maya area and are respon- 
sible for the development of this culture. It can be 
shown that the early Mayas have a few fresh-water 
pearls, but during the Great Period of their culture, at 
a time when they were erecting their greatest cities, there 
is no evidence of any knowledge of gold-working. This 
all came at a later time in their history. Distinctive 
and unique features of the Maya culture, such as the 
truly remarkable calendar system, are passed over com- 
pletely by the supporters of this theory. And yet Perry 
writes: “This Maya civilization, so far as we know it, 
reproduces many characteristic elements of Asiatic cul- 
ture, and has nothing peculiar to itself.”1" The unique 
features of this civilization—and the calendar is only one 
of these—are far more numerous and significant than cer- 
tain characteristics that are termed “Asiatic.” Truncated 
temple platforms, for example, do not owe their inception 
to the Egyptian pyramid. They are not pyramids at 
all in the true sense of the term. With one exception, 
there is not a single person who has engaged in modern 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 25 


scientific exploration and excavation in the Maya and 
Mexican area who believes in the Asiatic origin of this 
culture. 

The similarities in different phases of culture may be 
far more striking than those between the Maya and 
Asiatic regions and yet, in many cases, they too are but 
coincidences. In the Brer Rabbit stories I have shown 
evidence of transmission. Let me give here two stories 
with striking parallels, which seem to present no pos- 
sibility of contact, but illustrate what is called “psychic 
unity.” 

The first of these tales is from the Northwest Coast 
of British Columbia. The mink is a boy or an animal, 
perhaps both, and he is playing with the ducks and beats 
them. They then begin to tease him and say, “You do 
not even know where your father is.” The boy had never 
thought of this before and, running to his mother, asks 
her. She tells him that his father lives up in the sky and 
carries the sun every day. The boy wishes to visit his 
father; so his uncle makes him a set of bow and arrows 
and teaches him to shoot. He shoots the first arrow into 
the sun, where it remains; he sends the second into the 
end of the first, the third into the second, and so on, thus 
making a chain of arrows reaching from the earth to the 
sun. By this means he climbs into the heavens, where 
he finds his father, who allows him to carry the sun. 
All goes well until he reaches the top of the hill at the 
zenith of the sky. He gets uneasy and starts down the 
hill very rapidly; he kicks the clouds out of his way 
as he descends. His father’s attention is called to the 
destruction taking place on earth. The trees are shriv- 
eling, the grass is parched, and all the creatures are suf- 


26 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


fering. The father, snatching the sun from his boy, 
hurls the boy from the sky.%® 

It is not difficult to recognize here a very close parallel 
with the story of Phaéthon, the son of Phoebus Apollo. 
He complains to his mother that someone has questioned 
the fact that he is the son of a god. His mother sends 
him to Phebus to ask for himself. Phoebus Apollo, 
sitting on his throne, sees the boy and asks him what 
he is seeking. The youth replies, “Give me some proof 
by which I may be known as thine.” His father em- 
braces him, owns him for his son, and swears that 
whatever proof he may ask shall be granted. The boy 
immediately requests permission to drive the chariot of 
the sun for one day. The father tries to dissuade the 
boy. The first part of the way, he says, is steep; the 
middle is high in the heavens; and the last part of the 
road descends rapidly. The boy is not dissuaded, and 
Phcebus at last leads the way to the lofty chariot. The 
father reluctantly allows the boy to start, telling him 
to spare the whip and hold tight the reins. The steeds 
soon realize that the load they draw is lighter than 
usual; they dash headlong, leaving the travelled road. 
Phaethon grows pale and loses command of the horses. 
They rush unrestrained along unknown paths, now up 
in high heaven and now low almost to the earth. The 
clouds begin to smoke and Phaethon beholds the earth 
on fire. The earth looks up to heaven and prays Jupiter 
to end her agony at once by his thunderbolts. Jupiter, 
calling the gods to witness that all is lost unless some 
remedy be applied, brandishes a lightning bolt, launches 
it at the charioteer, and strikes him from his seat and 
from existence. Phaethon, with his hair on fire, falls 
headlong to the earth. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 27 


These two tales furnish a remarkable example, it 
seems to me, of coincidence, of similar features appear- 
ing at different times and under different conditions. In 
the preceding examples of similarities—in the Brer Rab- 
bit stories, for example,—we have seen a definite means 
of contact and the proof is beyond question. There is 
also contact shown in the distribution of the Magic 
Flight cycle of myths, which can probably be traced to a 
single origin. In the present case, however, the absence 
of any known possibility of physical contact, and the 
great stretch of country, barren of this myth, between 
the two regions, all seem to point to independent 
origins. This is negative evidence, to be sure, and this 
type of argument is always lacking in cogency. The 
ideas of the sun being identified in some way with the 
father, of its being carried or driven, and the movement 
of the sun from the east to the zenith as an up-hill road, 
and from zenith to west as a down-hill road, are not 
difficult to arrive at. The coincidences of customs as 
well as of myths are too well known to deny diverse 
origins in many cases. 

In the search for explanation for similarities of ideas 
of objects, both dissemination and independent inven- 
tion are needed. Historical backgrounds show dissem- 
ination over wide areas. A lack of historical background 
does not always imply a lack of dissemination. But 
where tales, ideas, customs, are found in widely sep- 
arated areas with no possibility of contact, it is possible, 
it seems to me, to admit the probability of independent 
origin. The history of inventions is full of identities of 
this character, and yet the late Dr. Rivers denied in 
my presence the possibility of more than a single origin, 
a single invention, of even the bow and arrow. And 


28 Social Origins and Social Continwties 


wherever the bow and arrow are found, they are to be 
traced back to the single source. Man’s mind is too fer-— 
tile, it seems to me, to deny similar inventions among 
two or more distinct peoples. 


Tue CRITERIA OF PROGRESS 


The application to the modern world of some of these 
theories will be considered next. There is no “one-way 
street” to cultural development. There are many ave- 
nues along which the different civilizations have trav- 
elled. There are varied values placed on many factors 
at different times and by diverse peoples. This brings 
numerous dilemmas into the discussion of the criteria 
of “progress.” 

It seems quite evident that there has been little or 
no progress or advance in man’s physical body since the 
end of Paleolithic times. There has been, if anything, 
a degeneration. This is seen in the teeth and in the eyes. 

When the progress of civilization is to be considered 
there is need first of all to determine what we mean by 
progress. If progress is defined as the increase of man’s 
ability to control nature, the advance of man has been 
continuous since the earliest days of his history. But 
there are other factors to consider. 

Graham Wallas writes, “Fifty years ago the practical 
men who were bringing the Great Society into existence 
thought, when they had time to think at all, that they 
were thereby offering an enormously better existence to 
the whole human race. Men were rational beings, and, 
having obtained limitless power over nature, would cer- 
tainly use it for their good. . . . Now, however, that the 
change has come, hardly anyone thinks of it with the 
old undoubting enthusiasm. ... The deeper anxiety of 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 29 


our time arises from a doubt, more or less clearly 
realized, whether that development is itself proceeding 
on right lines.’ 19 

Specialization in the modern world is often thought 
of as progress, the specialized workman in the specialized 
industry, the specialized scientist. Our forefathers and 
primitive man before them specialized in nothing. The 
industrial, the economic, and the social life centered for 
the most part in the family. The modern division of 
labor and the interdependence of the various parts of 
society were unknown. Specialization in the physical 
world is not progress. The specialized type of jaw of 
the anthropoid ape, the arms of the gibbon for locomo- 
tion, the prehensile tail of the monkey, the specialized 
type of leg of the wading birds, are only a few examples. 
In the long period of time separating man from his 
nearest ancestors, the general organization of his body 
resulted in many changes, and in two respects he came 
out specialized, his legs for walking and his brain for 
thought. In many respects he is the least differentiated 
of all the primates. Specialization in the physical sense 
means rigidity. If the races of men were developed on 
the physical side along lines of specialization, such as is 
found in the animal world, we might expect to find 
watch-makers with fingers tapering to the finest point, 
and the blacksmith with a hammer-like appendage in 
place of one of his hands. But man’s mental capacity 
enables him to develop limbs extraneous to his body, 
or, in other words, tools, and this ability is at the foun- 
dation of his industrial and social life. It is a question 
how far specialization in the social sense can go with- 
out bringing its own downfall. 

Has the tremendous increase of knowledge brought 


30 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


about by this specialization been accompanied by a 
corresponding increase in man’s intellectual faculties? 
The answer is undoubtedly, No. Galton attempted in 
his Hereditary Genius, published in 1869, and in his later 
papers, to determine the places the various races held in 
the intellectual scale by counting the proportion of the 
number of men of genius discoverable in each race. In 
spite of certain fallacies in his theory, the results are in- 
structive at this time. He found that the English were 
rated two grades lower than the Fifth Century Athenian. 

Let us consider next the question of some of the so- 
called “finer things of life.” We are certainly not now 
at the apex of man’s achievement in art and music. The 
most sublime art is produced neither by our generation 
nor by the Anglo-Saxon people, and certainly the most 
beautiful music is a product foreign to our time. Noth- 
ing need be said of modern literature. The ethical 
conduct of the present world is a subject for discussion 
on every hand. Granting different standards of ethics 
for different peoples, and assuming that ethical conduct 
is tested by the ability of each people to live up to the 
standards of its own race, primitive man certainly com- 
mitted fewer breaches of his ethical code than modern 
man. 

We have admitted an increase in the control of man 
over nature, but what of this increase when human na- 
ture is considered? ‘‘Harmonious co-ordination among 
members of a group,” “social harmony,” “behavioristic 
equilibrium,” have been advanced as some of the criteria 
of progress. If these are used as our test, there is very 
little we can call progress. 

The marked improvement during the last few genera- 
tions in the care of the poor, the sick, and the feeble- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 31 


minded, is distinctly an advance from the point of view 
of altruism. Granting to all social workers the sincerity 
of their efforts, the public as a whole is made to sup- 
port these works of charity often by an appeal to sel- 
fishness; the better care of the sick is to prevent one 
from contracting a disease either by contagion or through 
inheritance; the amelioration of the condition of poverty 
is to prevent social unrest, and attempts to content the 
laborer with conditions as he finds them. 

There are some efforts at the present time which can 
be considered as free from the charge of selfishness for 
their incentive; child labor is but one of these. The 
slow progress made in passing child-labor laws is but an 
indication of the far from progressive attitude of a por- 
tion, at least, of our population. 

In the discussion of our immigration laws, there is 
much talk about “America a refuge for the oppresscd,” 
but a careful analysis of the motives of both factions 
reveals in one a desire for cheap labor and in the other 
an attempt to keep up the prices of labor. 

It is not my intention to deny most creditable results 
on both the physical and the spiritual side to many of 
these efforts, but the point remains that their initiation 
and support can be traced in many cases to self-interest. 
The mere fact that the many agencies of social welfare 
are needed is in itself a reflection on the kind of progress 
we have in this generation. There is no doubt that from 
a purely physical standpoint the results are sometimes 
questionable. The mentally defective and the weakling 
are kept alive and allowed to perpetuate themselves to 
the detriment of the race. Galton writes, “Our human 
stock is far more weakly through congenital imperfec- 
tion than that of any species of animals whether do- 


32 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


mestic or wild.” Sometimes, it seems to me, too little 
attention is given to the physically vigorous among the 
poorer classes. 

Thus we do well to pause before answering the ques- 
tion, Does civilization progress? Has there been a “pas- 
sage from hardship, fear, and pain to general comfort and 
happiness” except on the purely physical side? 

Wallas suggests, “If we more often used Happiness 
instead of efficiency as our social criterion, it might be 
easier than it is now for the specialised business-men to 
realize, in this respect, the limitation of their ordinary 
fellow-citizens.” 1° 

George Bernard Shaw has asked in a recent lecture 
before the Fabian Society, “Is Civilization desirable?” 
and he adds that this is answered in the affirmative 
always in inverse ratio to the sensitiveness, intelligence, 
culture, and experience of the person answering it. An- 
other writer has lately said, “We are hypnotized with 
the progress theory ... the theory which shapes and 
colors the twentieth-century man’s whole outlook on life, 
the theory, the superstition of progress, the fanatic belief 
that everything starts little and grows big, begins simple 
and becomes complex, sets out poor and becomes rich.” 7° 

The last few generations have learned to control nature 
to an amazing extent, and this has resulted, as Babbitt 
points out, “in an immense and bewildering peripheral 
enrichment of life.” The “statistical proof of our mate- 
rial preéminence, which would have made a Greek ap- 
prehensive of Nemesis, seems to inspire in many Ameri- 

‘cans an almost lyrical complacency.” 4 

But what about an increase in the control of man? 
There is certainly an inference that some regulation is 
needed in the flood of bills passed both by the national 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 33 


and state governments on matters on which a decision 
was formerly in the hands of the individual. Does not 
the superficial idea of modern progress carry with it too 
great a weight of suggestion of our inherent greatness 
along all lines? The late War and its aftermath ought, 
it seems to me, to shatter at once some of the com- 
placency that we entertain for our progress. 

A final question may be asked: Are all social changes 
progressive? It is commonly argued that one phase of 
progress is from the simple to the complex. It is quite 
certain that complexity of culture does not mean a 
greater intellectual grasp of the rudiments of what makes 
life most worth while. Complexity implies the direction 
of intelligence toward contrivances, toward what Presi- 
dent Angell calls “the paraphernalia of civilization.” Me- 
chanical equipment does not necessarily connote intel- 
lectual equipment. It is trite to say that college build- 
ings do not make a college. 

There is a decided danger in these steady, ever-increas- 
ing complexities, these complications of life. A return 
to the “simple life” is a topic for many sermons. Some 
phases of the simple life, simpler than we need, to be 
sure, but none the less, I think, instructive, are to be 
discussed in this book. 


I have tried to show the difference between “nature 
and nurture,” between physical form as something in- 
herited and culture as something acquired. Secondly, I 
have endeavored to point out that all mankind has not 
in the past, and is not necessarily in the present, going 
along the same broad highway. There are wandering by- 
paths for some, leading away from the main road, and 
trails full of difficult turns for others. The third point 


34 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


was an attempt to explain similar features of culture by 
dissemination where it will hold, and by “psychic unity” 
or independent invention as a feature to be reckoned 
with. Finally, it was pointed out that the “tide of prog- 
ress” is sometimes an ebbing tide which may leave behind 
it flotsam and jetsam. 

One should try as far as possible to free himself from 
the usual point of view of using our own civilization as a 
basis for our judgments of value of the varied factors 
of primitive life. The emotional quality of our judgments 
of people different from ourselves colors our ideas and 
opinions more than we are often willing to admit. It is 
difficult to F ve a rational view of anything different 
from that to which we are accustomed. Anthropology 
tries to realize the wide range of cultural phenomena 
and endeavors to recognize the setting in which civilized 
as well as primitive man lives.?? 

Complacency towards our own civilization should be 
tempered by Toleration in any consideration of peoples 
different from ourselves in cultural development. 


ET 


CHAPTER II 


THE NATURE OF THE SAVAGE AND OF HIS 
SOCIETY 


Society is usually defined as an aggregation of human 
beings with a common basis of subsistence, banded to- 
gether through instinct or volition for purposes of mutual 
welfare and common defense. This definition applies 
quite as well to many forms of animal societies. An 
attempt will be made here to point out some of the dif- 
ferences which seem to exist between human and animal 
associations. 


ORIGIN OF HUMAN SOcIETY 


- What are the “elemental social facts” that mark off 
human aggregations from all other phenomena? It is 
possible to pass over completely the contract theory, 
long discarded, the theory of Hobbes, of Locke, and 
of Rousseau. They assume that men are isolated units, 
and they argue that human association comes into being 
as the result of reason, and hence it is artificial in con- 
struction. The antithesis of this idea is seen in the 
organic theory, which had its beginnings in the writings 
of Plato and Aristotle, but received its main support 
from the theory of organic evolution. Spencer is the 
35 


36 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


chief exponent of this school. According to this view, 
human society is an organism, and Spencer went so far 
as to arrange various peoples in an ascending series, 
each corresponding to some form of early animal life: 
the Protozoa, with minute cells, to the Veddahs of Cey- 
lon; bodies with clusters of cells to the Bushmen; Low 
Cryptogams to the Fuegians; High Cryptogams to the 
Australians; and so on upward.1 

It is hardly necessary to point out how completely 
this organic theory of society fails to satisfy the facts. 
I have already remarked upon a common inability to 
distinguish the physically organic and the congenital 
from the cultural. Society is not a great animal, and 
it is still doubtful how much man actually inherits from 
his animal ancestors in the way of social life. 

Granting the necessary amount of association among 
the same kind of animals for propagation and for cb- 
taining food, is there in animal society anything else? 
Darwin was not able to explain man as a social being. 
He states that he is unable to conjecture how social 
structure could have been evolved from the kind of 
association found among animals. 

The usual argument runs somewhat as follows: Man 
is a highly developed animal; hence his society must 
be a higher development of animal society. The associa- 
tions of man have something in them which is not based 
on propagation and obtaining a food supply. Culture is 
the result of man’s mental development, of his ability to 
think and to consider abstract propositions, of his self- 
consciousness. Thought develops the tool of thought, 
language, and language makes possible the communica- 
tion of ideas. Articulate speech is not found among ani- 
mals. As there is a large gap between the mental 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 37 


development of the ape and of man, within which speech 
came to the being later called man, so also is there a gap 
between animals and man on the social side. It is a dif- 
ference not only of quality but also of kind, made so by 
the possession of articulate speech and mental faculties 
not even foreshadowed in man’s nearest ancestors known 
to us. “We are born with a tendency, under appropriate 
conditions, to think,” writes Graham Wallas, and “man 
would not have been able to create the enormous intel- 
lectual gap between himself and the other animals if 
he had not also evolved the disposition of Language.” ? 

Society, then, is the result of man’s intelligent co- 
operation, and its roots are in the remarkable develop- 
ment of the brain. The inherent physical deficiencies 
for defense and offense in man, as compared with the 
other animals, made it necessary for him to provide 
himself with artificial means of security. His brain 
gave him the power to invent protective measures. Given 
food and this brain, society was possible. The economic 
and psychological factors are far more important than 
those of a biological nature. At no time can the thread 
between the non-human and human society be said to 
have been broken, but it is so slender a thread that 
very little that is social can be attached to it. 

It cannot, of course, be denied that there are animal 
traits seen in all forms of human association. They 
are always present, but these in themselves would not 
have developed human society as we know it even among 
the lowest savages. Biological interests such as sex, 
hunger, heat and cold will always be factors in human 
society, but they are not the causes that produced it. 

Human society is not, then, according to this view, 
based upon organic structure derived from non-human 


38 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


animals. The interaction of mind upon mind, the abil- 
ity to discuss, to interchange ideas, to think, are funda- 
mental in human society. Its structure is mental; so 
the psychological basis is the only proper one for our 
examination of the origin of human association. The 
change in the trend of thought from the biological to the 
psychological conception is to be noted in the change in 
nomenclature. Formerly, society was explained in terms 
taken from biology—function, structure, heredity, and 
variation—and now such terms as social mind, desire, 
volition, sympathy, consciousness, and will are most 
commonly used to describe certain phases of human 
association.® 

This psychological theory has been explained in many 
ways. There seems to be an inclination for many in- 
vestigators to find a slogan to settle the whole question 
with a phrase or in a single word; the “Consciousness 
of Kind” of Giddings, “Imitation” of Tarde, “Tradition” 
of Small, “Contact” of DeGreef. The complexity of 
human association is so great that it is not possible to 
find a single phrase to explain the beginnings of society. 
Imitation will not start anything, but is, of course, a 
most important factor when an idea is once launched. 
Contact is essential. “Consciousness of kind” explains 
the ethnocentric character of early as well as of many 
modern societies, and the love of tradition is one of the 
causes for the slow progress of many peoples. All of 
these factors are needed in our explanation of society. 

It would be difficult to understand the cultural history 
of man were one to agree with some sociologists that 
“the horde of savage men is simply a mass of practically 
identical specimens of a species, just like a shoal of fish 
or a herd of buffaloes. That is, so long as the health- 


—— ns 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 39 


interest alone is in working force, there is no such fact 
present as a human individual. The specimens in the 
aggregation are not individualized. Each presents the 
same dead level of characteristics that appear in all 
the rest. So far nothing but the animal kingdom is in 
sight.” * So long as man has been man there must have 
been differences in mental capacity. The man-horde is 
a figure more picturesque than true. Even among ani- 
mals there is no reason to suppose that all are equally 
alert. Individuals always stand out from the crowd, 
and this was probably no less true among the first men. 
It is certainly the case among primitive peoples of the 
present day; personal eccentricities of action, both men- 
tal and physical, are always noted among savages. In 
other words, the “great man” stands out among his 
fellows; he it is who initiates new ways of doing things. 
In a community at war, it is the bravest warrior; in a 
hunting community, the best hunter; in a village given 
over to industry, it may be the best potter. 

A few years ago, one of the finest pottery-makers of 
the Southwest, a woman of the Pueblo of San Ildefonso, 
invented a new method of decorating her jars. The 
innovation was immediately recognized both by Indian 
and by white man as a distinct improvement over the 
older forms of decoration. The Cacique of the village 
gave the inventor a proprietary right to her new method, 
a patent as it were, for one year. She alone could profit 
from the results of her skill and ingenuity. After the 
year was up other potters imitated the new method 
and the market is now flooded with the new ware, but 
Maria’s jars are easily recognized by her superior tech- 
nique. 


40 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


Thus the dexterous individual with his or her hands 
invents now ways of doing things as the expert with his 
brain brings about innovations in cultural life. In other 
words, the mentally alert originate and the others imi- 
tate. Each feature of the culture of a people, which is 
not borrowed from the outside, must necessarily be traced 
back to one person. Many minds may have been at 
work to solve a problem, but the initial spark of a new 
idea is probably an individual product within the same 
people. This does not deny that similar solutions may 
have been arrived at independently among two different 
peoples, whether or not simultaneously. The psycho- 
logical contact between the originator and the mass of 
followers is one of the fundamental bases of society. 

Sociologists have often found it difficult to describe 
successfully the nature of civilized society, where the 
conditions are more or less uniform. This situation is 
far from being the case in primitive life. There are 
peoples still living who illustrate all the grades of cul- 
ture from the later Stone Age onward. The gradations 
are sometimes almost imperceptible and the border line 
between the uncivilized and the civilized is non-existent 
unless some definite and arbitrarily chosen criterion is 
used. Morgan used the alphabet as his test for separat- 
ing the savage from civilized man. 


Causes UNDERLYING DIvVERGENCES IN CULTURES 


What are the fundamental reasons for these differences 
in peoples: retardation in the culture of some; accelera- 
tion in that of others? We are concerned here only with 
the beginnings of the movement, with the hypotheses 
not of history but of pre-history, although these theories 
often apply to both fields. 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 41 


Racist THEORY 


How are the differences in the cultural levels of man 
to be explained? The answers to this question have 
been many and varied. One group of writers claims that 
a biological difference in races is responsible for peoples 
in different stages of development. Granted that the 
differences in the life of various species of animals are 
due mainly to their biological constitution, the differences 
in the races of men are so slight, from a physical, physio- 
logical, and psychological basis, that this would not 
necessarily hold true for man. According to the theory 
of the Racial School, there are inherent inequalities in 
races. The argument will be advanced later that most 
of the differences between races are due to something 
other than blood. This racial theory is the happy hunt- 
ing-ground for a small group of pseudo-scientists who 
have a veneer of anthropological method covering up a 
substratum of conjecture, prejudice, and most unscien- 
tific methods of thought. Some would make Christ a 
Nordic blond. Giinther makes Napoleon a member of 
the same race, although we know he was short and 
dark, a Mediterranean with probably some Alpine mix- 
ture; and he also makes Ludendorff a Nordic, although 
the world knows he has a head like a bullet. Cleopatra 
was, of course, a Nordic, as she had blue eyes. 

This theory is called by Giddings “an anthropological 
theory of history,” although practically every American 
anthropologist has rejected it. He adds, very truthfully, 
that it “has most mischievously confounded biological, 
psychological, and cultural facts.”® The fundamental 
racial characteristics have comparatively little to do 
with culture. In the first place, civilizations have been 


42 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


achieved vy at least two of the three great groups of 
mankind, the White and the Mongolian. Furthermore, 
both civilized and uncivilized man are found in the same 
group. The White division of mankind has, according 
to this racial speculation, certain inherent characteristics 
of greatness, but it is only the Nordic subdivision that 
receives the honor of first place. The first objection to 
this theory is that the three European races, the Nordic, 
the Alpine, and the Mediterranean, are so thoroughly 
mixed that it is difficult, outside of the Scandinavian 
countries and the southern tip of Italy, to find any 
countries or communities where one of these races is in 
anything like a pure state. The great civilization cen- 
tering around the Mediterranean were built by a pure 
race, the Mediterranean. The first place should be given 
to these people and not to the Nordic, for it was they 
who were mainly responsible for the beginnings of what 
we call our civilization, and they held sway over all the 
other peoples of Europe for a far longer time than any 
other. Up to a comparatively late time, the culture of 
the Nordics was a derived culture, not an original one. 
It is true that they showed great energy and powers of 
domination after they had once started, but this was 
within the last few hundred years, and after they had 
profited by all the slow accumulation of culture of their 
Alpine and Mediterranean neighbors. There is not an 
essential known feature of human culture which has an 
origin outside the tropical and subtropical regions. 


ENVIRONMENT 


Another theory to account for the differences in the 
cultures of the peoples of the world is the environmental. 
Anthropo-geography is the term used by Ratzel, who 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 43 


was one of the first of the modern exponents of this 
theory. Buckle’s History of Civilization in England 
(1857-1861) belongs to the same school. He tried to 
contrast those influences of nature which led to emo- 
tional reactions, such as religion and magic, and those 
which led to intellectual achievements. No great minds 
were to be expected in regions of violence, destruction, 
and great cataclysms of nature. Here only terror and 
superstition were to be found. It was in regions free from 
these horrors, where nature was evenly disposed, that 
science and culture had their origin. It is needless to 
comment on this kind of reasoning. 

Environment is certainly one of the influential factors 
brought into play in the life histories of peoples. The 
statement is often made that primitive man is com- 
pletely a creature of his environment, whereas civilized 
man transforms his environment to suit his needs. This 
is not the place to enlarge upon the marvellous character 
of the modern changes in environment, but it should be 
noted in passing that all living primitive peoples outside 
the tropics or the Arctic regions are occupying at the 
present time localities of far greater adversity than 
when they were the sole possessors of the soil of a 
country. The white man’s progress has been the one 
main cause for the degradation of the savage within 
historic times. The most outspoken adherents of this 
theory of physical geography find it responsible for 
practically everything in the life of man. 

The following quotation is from the Introduction of 
the Cambridge Ancient History, and shows the absurd 
lengths to which environment can be stretched to ac- 
count for physical and cultural traits. “The yellow skin- 
colour of Mongoloid man gives him protective camou- 


44 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


flage in sandy desert and dry-grass steppe; the structure 
of his straight wiry hair, and its rarity except on the 
scalp, suggest adaptation to a continental climate; while 
its extreme length in both sexes serves to disguise the 
characteristic profile of the human head and neck, and 
approximate it to that of the quadruped seen from be- 
hind. From the rather prominent jaw combined with 
globular brain-case may be inferred long habituation 
to some food which minimized the pull of the jaw 
muscles on the side-walls of the skull; and the only 
food which fulfills this condition is milk and _ its 
products, on which nomad Tartars still live almost 
exclusively: the absence of face-hair, the short concave 
nose with spread nostrils and peculiar infantile lips, the 
wide flat face and obliquely set eyes, find explanation 
if we suppose that for long this milk was absorbed direct 
from the udder; and the short legs of some Mongoloids, 
and poor development of the calf-muscles in all, suggest 
that the parasitic proto-Mongol, like Tartar infants 
nowadays, sat tight upon his host between meals, and 
shared its wanderings.” 6 

Let us consider some of the effects of environment 
upon the physical and cultural life of man. 

Environment, during the later stages of man’s his- 
tory, seems to have had surprisingly little effect upon 
the physical side of his being. Pigmentation has usually 
been considered to be due to climate. Whatever factors 
are responsible for the color of skin and of hair, and 
these are still undetermined, there is no doubt that dark- 
skinned people in general live in the lower latitudes and 
blonds in the higher latitudes. Heat and sun were prob- 
ably responsible for the deposition of pigment in the 
dark-skinned races, but it cannot be proved that the 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 45 


fair European peoples lost their pigment as the result 
of the diminished action of sunlight. Lack of light does 
not necessarily mean bleaching, as fair skin is a foetal 
characteristic. The plasticity of man on the physical side 
was probably greater in the early days of his history than 
it is now: Tanning is nature’s remedy temporarily to 
protect the white man from the rays of the sun. 

There is the greatest contrast in the force of environ- 
ment upon the physical character of man and of animals 
and plants. The transportation of an animal or a vege- 
table to a territory with new climatic conditions often 
brings about with surprising rapidity many morpho- 
logical changes. Man makes his adjustments, not by 
physical changes in his body, but by protective inven- 
tions originating in his brain. 

The psychical effects of environment should next be 
considered. The temperament, the literature, and the 
music of the southern Italian in contrast with these 
features among the Russians, for example, have often 
been explained in large part from an environmental 
basis. Race temperament has never been satisfactorily 
analyzed and it is impossible to say how great a part 
geographical factors play in its composition. 

Leaving aside for the moment the question of the 
relative mental potentiality of different races, there is 
little doubt that the white man in the tropics is not 
usually a success. How much of this is due to physical 
environment and how much to social adjustment are 
still undetermined. 

Some would have us believe that ethical codes are 
determined largely by geographical conditions, but good 
and bad morals are found among all peoples in all climes. 
The criteria of ethical conduct are to be discussed later. 


46 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Environment has a large part to play in the social 
life of a people. It may determine the size of the group. 
In a region of great inhospitality, such as the northern 
littoral of this continent, a sparse population given over 
to hunting and fishing is alone possible under primitive 
conditions. Agriculture is out of the question. In 
regions of a less adverse character, the environment 
may play a smaller part. The earliest inhabitants of 
New England, for example, hunted their game here. 
Later aborigines cut down a portion of the forest and 
cultivated a part of the land. The earliest white settlers 
came and felled more of the trees and brought the land 
under a more intensive cultivation. There was no change 
of environment, but changes in the cultural life of the 
inhabitants. It is not always true that a hunting people 
are lower in the scale of culture than an agricultural 
community. The monotypical evolutionist has the 
hunter first, then the pastoral nomad, and finally the 
agriculturist. Some hunting and fishing peoples are 
found higher in the scale than their agricultural neigh- 
bors. Nor does the possession of an animal possible 
for domestication always bring about this domesti- 
cation. The Chuckee of northeastern Siberia, influenced, 
no doubt, by the Tungus tribes to the south and west, 
brought the reindeer under domestication, but the Eskimo 
failed to do this and only hunted this animal. The 
Indian elephant was domesticated, the African variety 
was not. There is, therefore, no necessary correlation 
between domestication of animals and environment,” 

It has often been pointed out that the forms of 
marriage are dependent upon geographical surroundings. 
Polyandry was formerly considered the typical form of 
marriage only in adverse environments where it took 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 47 


more than one man to support a wife. It will be shown 
later that there is little correlation between polyandrous 
marriages and physical conditions. 

The economic life of a people is naturally the resultant 
of the environment. An abundant supply of food is the 
first essential for a prosperous population, but it can be 
shown that a struggle for food is sometimes a factor in 
the achievements of man. Where population outgrows 
its food supply a pressure may be brought to bear which 
gives rise to new inventions. In regions of low rainfall 
the adversity of nature may spur man on to build irriga- 
tion works, provide for a storage of water, and invent 
intensive means for cultivating food. This is the usual 
argument employed to account for the origin of agri- 
culture in our own Southwest, but, as Kroeber has shown, 
the introduction of maize cultivation in this area was due 
to borrowing from the peoples to the south. The sub- 
aridity of the climate was probably a factor, however, 
in developing a special kind of dry-farming suitable to 
the conditions present there. 

The failure of environment to play its expected part 
on every occasion is worthy of note. Cultural inertia is 
often too great to be overcome. The Pueblo and Navajo 
tribes of the Southwest are often cited in this connection. 
Both peoples have been residents of this country for 
hundreds of years and yet their houses, clothing, social 
customs, and religion are quite distinct. Borrowings by 
the Navajos from the Pueblo peoples have been frequent, 
but two different patterns of life still persist. The force 
of environment has not been strong enough to bring 
about a single complex of customs. Furthermore, it is 
perfectly possible to find more than one successful 
reaction to the same environment. 


48 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


The industrial life of a people is dependent to a con- 
siderable extent upon environment. There can be no 
pottery where there is no clay. But there can be a 
supply of clay and no pottery. A good clay formation 
does not automatically start a pottery industry. Cultural 
inertia may prevent a people from making use of the 
products of a new country into which they move. 

Environment may affect religion. The geographical 
situation of the Egyptians, in a narrow and fertile valley 
with the desert directly on the east and west, tinged their 
entire idea of the other world. The native peoples of 
the Southwest need rain, and most of their religious 
ritual is directed towards placating the rain gods and 
imploring them to come. 

The physical background of a people may show itself 
in language. An extensive study, often called “Lin- 
guistic Paleontology,” has been built up on this fact. 
This method was applied by Benfey as early as 1868 in 
his search for the original home of the Aryan language. 
Karly roots in the Indo-Germanic group of languages, for 
bear, wolf, the oak tree, the beech, and the fir, with an 
absence of any for the tiger and the palm, postulated 
a European origin for the parent language. Difficulties 
immediately arose, and the long continued discussion of 
this method bears evidence of its general failure to work 
in tracing geographical origins. The extensive borrow- 
ing of words and the often surprising similarity of sounds 
in root words of non-related languages are but examples 
of the danger, already shown, of laying too much stress 
on superficial similarities.® 

The movements of peoples are often determined by 
environment. The absence of barriers does not, how- 
ever, always bring about shifting of populations. In 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 49 


northern California, peoples speaking different languages 
are sometimes found on opposite sides of a narrow river. 
The Mediterranean area, where movement by water was 
possible in all directions, shows a cultural distribution 
dating from very early times. Semple has pointed out 
in this connection the history of the Mohawk Valley, the 
only decided break across the entire range of the Appa- 
lachian mountain system. In the early days it was the 
main trail for Indians going inland from the Atlantic 
seaboard. The French and English in their struggle for 
supremacy in the New World fought here. Again in the 
Revolution the control of the Mohawk-Hudson route 
was the objective of the British armies on the Canadian 
border; and, finally, in the War of 1812, Perry used it 
in obtaining control of the Great Lakes. The grooves 
of travel across a country were first found by the 
aborigines, and often a modern railroad system follows 
the same path.?° 

Knowing as much as we do about the shiftings of 
populations, and more especially the wide-spread migra- 
tion of commodities and ideas, there seems to be an 
undue emphasis upon physical barriers within the same 
continental area. The great oceans alone seem to have 
served as bars to travel, as there are no clearly proved 
migrations in pre-Columbian times either westward 
across the Atlantic to the New World or eastward across 
the Pacific. The points of contact between Asia and 
North America at Behring Strait served in all probability 
for the advent of man into the New World, and it has 
since served for an abundant interchange of customs of 
the Eskimo into Siberia and of Siberian ideas into Alaska. 

The great adaptability of man as well as of animals to 
all kinds of climate is a factor always worthy of con- 


50 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


sideration. Under an adverse environment progress may 
be slow, but the adjustment may be a perfect one. This 
is best brought out among the Eskimo, where the rela- 
tion of population to land, clothing, shelter, and food, 
tools and weapons, all combine to make life possible in 
an arctic environment. Stefansson has shown that the 
native methods of living are more suitable in every way 
to the climate than anything that the white man can 
devise. Man is the most versatile animal when it comes 
to an adjustment to his geographical surroundings. The 
question of food supply alone keeps the white man away 
from the colder parts of the earth. Stefansson has tried 
to show in his Friendly Arctic that colonization and 
exploitation of the subpolar region is possible. Take the 
other extreme. “A warm climate enervates” is the usual 
expression employed in describing the handicap of civi- 
lization in the tropics. And yet we find in Egypt, India, 
Cambodia, Java, and Central America remains of civili- 
zations which show the result of perhaps the greatest 
expenditure of physical energy ever exhibited in the 
history of the world. As Spinden has remarked, white 
colonization in the tropics is not so much a question of 
climate as a problem of conquering the parasites of 
disease which, like everything else in a warm country, 
grow unhampered until brought under control.1t The 
case of yellow fever at Panama and in Latin America in 
general is an outstanding example of the success which 
may be accomplished. The same will doubtless be done 
in the case of malaria and other parasitic diseases. The 
tropics can possibly be made available for the white man 
and we shall probably hear less of “enervation.” 

It must not be forgotten that man probably became 
man in the tropics, and that all the crucial steps in 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 51 


human progress took place in a warm climate. An ad- 
justment to a cold climate is purely one of culture. 
There is no clear proof that physically man has made any 
adaptation to climate. The nose of the Eskimo may 
show a change resulting from climate, but this is by no 
means certain. Without the benefits of culture, in the 
role of clothing and housing, for example, man could not 
live outside the tropics. 

Too much stress ought not to be laid on environment 
for several reasons. First, distinct cultures are found in 
identical physical surroundings. In the Southwest, we 
have already noted the radically different Navajo and 
Pueblo peoples. In Africa, we find the Bantus and the 
Pygmies in identical physical surroundings, but with dis- 
tinct cultures. Secondly, great civilizations are to be 
found in an adverse environment. Mesopotamia fur- 
nishes an example of this. Thirdly, crude cultures are 
to be found under most favorable situations, as in Cali- 
fornia with its tribes of most backward natives. 
Fourthly, the fall of great civilizations has occurred with 
no change of environment, as in Greece and Rome. 
Fifthly, customs adopted in an unfavorable environment 
often persist when a change is made to more favorable 
conditions; and, lastly, cultural traits may even dis- 
appear when least expected. The people living on Torres 
Straits and those inhabiting Easter Island lost their 
means of navigation. 

Environment furnishes the “bricks and mortar,” the 
materials for culture, more especially for that part of it 
which is objective. The way in which these materials 
are to be used—their selection, their order, and the gen- 
eral plan of the structure to be erected with them—is a 
question of the capacity and social inclinations of the 


52 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


builders. There are good architects and bad ones using 
the same material. Environment is a “limiting condition.” 

It is not the new physical environment of the New 
World that changes our foreign immigrants within a 
few generations into Americans, but the cultural and 
social environment. It has been recognized that the 
Americanization of our foreign population is to be 
accomplished by education, by contact. When there are 
large homogeneous colonies of foreign-born in the large 
cities with their own customs and their own languages, 
there is little or no contact possible except in the case 
of the children, and the process of change is a very slow 
one. Cultural inertia is found here as well as in more 
primitive communities. 


Man has an innate equipment for culture as the result 
of his generalized form and his large brain capacity. He 
is equipped with the body to use tools and his power of 
reflection shows him the way in which he can manu- 
facture and employ mechanical devices. The ability to 
reflect gives him a religion, a ritual. It enables him to 
argue that he may obtain an abundance of game pro- 
vided he draws upon the walls of his cave pictures of 
the animals he hopes to capture. 

An attempt has been made, up to this point, to show 
that society cannot be explained as a biological organism, 
and that the innate tendencies of man do not in them- 
selves create culture. It has also been noted that the 
inert character of the environment cannot entirely expiain 
the difference of social levels on which the races of man- 
kind are found. 

We hear much about “original man.” If this means 
the first animal which might be called man, we know 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 53 


nothing except a few hints about his physical body. 
Anthropology sometimes tries to deduce the nature of 
the culture of original man by what archeology can tell 
us, but principally by the thesis that he must be some- 
thing like what we find among the lowest known savages, 
It must not be forgotten that even the lowest races of 
man now living have a culture hundreds of thousands of 
years away from that of first man; and when we remem- 
ber that culture is built by accumulation, however slow, 
one should hesitate before painting this original man in 
a very strong light. 


Tue Groupe MINpD 


Some psychologists, particularly the French School, 
would have us believe that society has a group mind, 
that the personal units of society play little part in this. 
There is a sort of “moral organism,” as McDougal! 
expresses it, made up of individual parts and having a 
definite purpose. Some adherents of this theory believe 
that in this collective consciousness the resultant shows 
a complete fusion, the individual playing but a small 
role in this “synthesis.” He is only the link, the carrier 
of custom transmitted from one generation to another. 
Freedom of action is sometimes denied the individual. 
Imitation is a strong force in all grades of societies, but 
it is the individual mind, the “great man,” who initiates, 
who invents new ways of action. One man cannot pro- 
duce a culture, but the accumulation of the activities of 
individual minds results in a culture.’ 

This does not deny that great movements are bigger 
than the individual, and that the g>:at mass of mankind 
do nothing more than float along on the waves of social 
reform, or movements in art and industry. But we must 


54 Social Origins and Social Continuitties 


not forget that there are those who prefer to remain on 
the shore, and those who, although floating in this 
stream, have their anchors down and, when they move, 
set their rudders for certain direct courses. 

Society is the resultant of personal units. There is 
little social sentiment except through the medium of 
individual consciousness. Personal merit and initiative 
are probably more immediately recognized in primitive 
society than in modern life. Where the life of a tribe is 
full of crises, stress of circumstances develops a leader. 
Individual fitness for leadership, politically, socially, and 
from the military point of view, is usually demanded 
among the most primitive peoples. In higher grades of 
Savage society and in the modern world, where govern- 
ment has been crystallized, personality plays a far less 
important part. 


THE SavaGe AND CrvItizED MAN 


Many attempts have been made to draw distinctions 
between savage and civilized man upon the psychological 
side. Robinson states that there are four historical lay- 
ers underlying the mind of modern man: the animal 
mind, the child mind, the savage mind, and the tradi- 
tional civilized mind. Our animal nature comes out 
most prominently in matters of sex, the necessity of 
sleep, thirst, and hunger. Our child mind is seen in the 
play proclivities, which ought to be a component part of 
every normal individual.’ Our savage mind is one of 
the main subjects of this book. These strata,—the ani- 
mal, the child, the savage, and the civilized natures,—it 
seems to me, are not laid horizontally, one covering the 
other, but they are tipped vertically, so that no one is 
completely covered by another. Each appears to a 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 55 


greater or less degree in the mind of every civilized man. 
If these factors are all present (and I think they are) an 
attempt to show definite stages of advance from the ani- 
mal to the savage, and from the savage to civilized man, 
is almost futile. The continuity of cultural life from. the 
lowest forms to those of the modern world makes it 
impossible to draw distinct lines separating the categories 
of culture. 
INSTINCT 


A favorite topic for discussion in regard to the nature 
of animal and human society, and of savage and civilized 
society, is the factor of instinct. The usual argument is 
that as human societyis.an outgrowth ofthe social life 
of animals, so-human. society. takes. over the instinctive 
equipment of the animal world. There is nothing to 
cause its loss. The older argument was that as instincts 
are stable and unchangeable, so early society is stable, 
hence instinctive; or the other way round,—early society 
is instinctive, hence it is stable. 

Many psychologists are now willing to agree that the 
principal instincts or “predispositions” of man are liable 
to modification of their motor parts, while their central 
parts remain unchanged.*# 

There is a large mass of literature upon instincts. 
Various attempts have been made to classify them. No 
two authorities agree as to their number or their char- 
acter. There are two main difficulties in any classifica- 
tion. The first is an almost total ignorance of the way 
newly-born babies react to stimuli of various kinds. 
Watson has shown by experiments that the fear instinct 
in infants can be aroused only by the sense of falling and 
by a loud noise. 


56 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


The second difficulty in any classification of man’s 
“predispositions” is found in the fact that there is no 
inclusiveness, but a general overlapping. The parental 
instinct may include fright, pugnacity, and acquisition. 
One runs into another,—fright into pugnacity. Every- 
thing man does has a double basis,—partly inherited and 
partly acquired.15 I have already tried to show that 
from the point of view of human culture we can elimi- 
nate almost everything but those characteristics of man 
which he learns from his fellow man. Graham Wallas 
writes, “In the case of man, this irradiation of instinctive 
action by intelligence shades into processes in which 
intelligence acts as an independent directing force.” 2 

Wissler has said that ‘man inherits a single ‘pattern,’ 
just as the ant inherits an ‘ant pattern.’”16 Let me 
amplify the figure and say that man inherits some of the 
factors necessary to make a pattern,—the warp alone is 
there to hold the fabric together; but the woof, the filling- 
in of the pattern, is a product of man’s own invention, 
something he learns, and quite apart from any innate 
characteristics which he may have. How can there be so 
many different fabrics made on this warp, and so varied 
designs in these textiles, if this filling-in process all came 
from inborn tendencies? Man’s environment gives him 
the materials for his fabric. The design grows out of 
his inventive faculty. Some people in making this tex- 
tile allow the warp to show through; others cover it up 
completely with the woof; still others so manipulate 
the warp that a few of the threads may be eliminated 
altogether. 

Let us limit ourselves in this discussion to the primary 
instincts of sex and hunger,—the old-fashioned, if you 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 57 


will,—“‘love quest and food quest.” These are funda- 
mental in the history of the family. 

Savage society has been described as largely made up 
of instinctive reactions. So far as these two instincts, 
love and hunger, are concerned, the savage has evolved 
methods of dealing with these that seem to show effective 
results; and prove, it seems to me, that primitive man 
is not the unbridled individual who gives way to his 
‘inclinations at, all times-and-in-all places: The elaborate 
systems of sexual tabus, found in all early societies, 
prove a part of this thesis. His continence before battle, 
during the pregnancy of his wife and often for some time 
after the birth of a child, and during the preparation and 
celebration of some religious festival, all show this factor 
pointing away from self-indulgence. The strict laws of 
marriage, often greatly limiting the choice of a wife, and 
stringent punishments for adultery found among some 
peoples, all point in the same direction. The prohibi- 
tions regarding food of certain kinds are many. Some- 
times an abundant source of food is cut off completely 
from the enjoyment of an individual or a whole group in 
the community. It is doubtful if the average man in 
civilized society has learned to repress these two instincts 
in any degree comparable with that of his less fortunate 
brother. 


Some CHARACTERISTICS OF Primitivp Man 


In this discussion of the nature of the savage it is well 
to correct, if possible, some of the popular misconceptions 
regarding his natural equipment for life. I have just 
tried to show that the savage knows how to restrain him- 
self along sex lines. 

A common impression is abroad that primitive man 


58 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


has a greater keenness of the senses than that possessed 
by civilized man. Travellers’ tales are full of examples 
to prove this point. There is a general agreement that 
there is no detectible evidence to show. that.the primitive 
man has any great and inherent advantage over the 
white man in respect to the senses. The blunting of our 
faculty of sight by fine print and artificial light, of hear- 
ing by the unextinguishable noises of our civilization, 
and an increase in the acuteness of our sense of feeling 
by clothes and artificial heat, are all unnatural factors 
coming from our social environment. % iy 

The savage’s ability in the hunt is thus due not to a 
greater keenness of the senses of sight and of smell, but 
to high powers of observation. He knows when and 
where and how best to capture the animal he is after, by 
an intimate knowledge of the habits of that animal. 
He reads and interprets the signs of nature and of life 
around him in a way known only to a few white men. 
Trained observation and memory are common factors in 
savage life. 

I once witnessed one of the complicated nine-day 
ceremonies of the Navajos. It was in the month of 
November, which is the favorite time for this “Night 
Chant.” On the sixth day the shaman who was con- 
ducting the rites took a sharpened end of a bone and, 
apparently at random, made two different groups of 
holes in a gourd rattle. The first set of perforations was 
later identified as the constellation of Auriga, and, below 
this, was a partial representation of Ursa Major. The 
second group of holes showed in succession the Pleiades, 
the Hyades, and the constellation of Orion. Both these 
groups represent sky gods of the Navajos, and they are 
seen respectively in the northern and southeastern sky at 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 59 


about midnight in the month of November in the South- 
west. The shaman, although inside the hogan or cere- 
monial lodge when he made his holes, knew the heavens 
well enough to represent with remarkable accuracy the 
appearance of these stars at the time the rite was being 
performed. 

At another time I was studying the life of the Lacan- 
dones, a “savage” people in the midst of the Guatemalan 
bush, isolated from all contact with the white man. 
During my first visit I had taken numerous photographs. 
On my return for a second season, I showed them with 
keen interest, anxious to observe the reaction to what 
must have been their first contact with photography. 
To my amazement and disappointment the pictures 
created no interest whatsoever. The children were soon 
playing with them as pieces of paper, in itself a bit of 
civilization with which they were unfamiliar. There 
was no esoteric aversion to the pictures as far as I could 
make out. The only explanation I could suggest was 
that they could not see them. These people had prob- 
ably never before beheld anything in three dimensions 
reproduced on a flat surface except, possibly, their reflec- 
tions in the water. Furthermore the reduction in size of 
their figures required a mental adjustment new to them 
in order to comprehend that the inch-high forms in the 
photographs represented themselves. It was not that 
their sense of sight was poor, but that it lacked accom- 
modation™ to the novel conditions, igs) 
A factor, usually placed upon the debit side of 
the ledger for primitive man, is his inability to concen- 
trate on any one thing for any length of time. This 
judgment is based entirely upon the fact that the savage 
will not often bring his mind to bear on the things which 


~ 


60 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


do not..interest him and which he does not understand. 
It is, it must be confessed, somewhat difficult for us to 
realize what may interest and what may bore. The 
story is told of a band of Indians who were brought from 
the West to Boston many years ago, during the first days 
of the telephone. Their white guides predicted an amaze- 
ment on the part of the Indians when they should hear a 
voice speaking over the wire,—but on the contrary: the 
Indians easily explained it as the voice of a spirit, and 
it aroused no great interest, much to the disappointment 
of their white friends. They were taken to Lowell and 
visited the knitting mills. They who were accustomed 
to watch their wives working for weeks and possibly 
months upon a blanket, now saw one being made befure 
their eyes in a few minutes. This it was which excited 
them to a pitch of enthusiasm for the white man’s in- 
genuity. This fitted into their background and was 
properly valued. 

Has primitive man a greater susceptibility to stimuli 
of an emotional nature, and is this susceptibility of a 
different order from that of civilized man? There are 
two questions here, the first referring to quantity and 
the second to quality. Bcth these questions fall within 
the scope of experimental psychology, but practically 
nothing has been done along these lines. 

As for the measure of quantity of emotional reactions 
in the two fields of savage and civilized life, there are 
some indications that cause one to hesitate before say- 
ing, categorically, that the emotional states of primitive 
man are far more quickly brought into play and are far | 
greater in quantity than is the case with those living in a 
state of civilization. The ignorant of our own popula- 
tion share to a great extent the same tendency towards 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 61 


emotions as that shown by primitive man, extreme nerv- 
ous susceptibility. There is reason to think that the sub- 
ordination of reason to feelings is to be found more fully 
developed among our ignorant than among. primitive 
people. The savage is often thought to be acting “unrea- 
sonably,” but careful investigation may show him to be 
carrying out a series of acts unnatural and unreasonable 
to us, but rational from his point of view. Primitive 
man seldom does anything.without some definite idea 
behind his actions. His reasoning powers are not defec- 
tive, but they have poor material to work on. 

Civilized man has greater plasticity in his judgments. 
Consider the vast array of facts available as an aid in 
establishing a rational decision upon all scientific sub- 
jects drawn from the various sciences. We know some- 
thing of the secret of the universe, the true cause and 
effects of certain lines of action—the source of certain 
diseases, for example. And yet, how many among us,— 
and not always the most ignorant,—fail to take these 
into consideration in forming judgments. Superstition 
is found among all classes of our population,—belief in 
charms and amulets still persists. False reasoning in all 
lines of action, in spite of atari laid oona by science, | 
is not uncommon. 


One might imagine that the power of suggestion was 


greater among primitive people than among the more 
civilized. We may well doubt this, in view of the 
phenomenal growth of so-called religions based entirely 
upon suggestion. The success of Coué and his follow- 
ers, the growth of New Thought and of Christian Science, 
are all indications that the welfare of mankind can be 
benefited by suggestion. The medicine man works along 
the very same lines. 


62 Social Origins and Social Continurties 


There is certainly a need for something to counteract 
the nervous disorders of civilized man. Mental hygiene 
in its various forms is our answer. This need seems to 
show that, emotionally, civilized man is not far behind ~ 
the lowly savage. Psychologically man is one. 

The important point for consideration here is not 
whether these neuroses are caused by environment, or 
whether they are inherited; but the fact that they are 
present, and that the emotional side of the life of present- 
day man is something that has to be considered. Nervous 
disorders are not uncommon among primitive peoples, 
and suggestion is the most important method employed 
to cure these ills both among savage.and among civilized 
people. 


INTELLECT 


The very debatable subject of intellect next concerns 
us. There are several questions here. First, do races 
differ inherently from one another in their intellectual 
capacity? In other words, are there biological differ- 
ences in the nervous systems of the different races? 
Secondly, do all races have the same potentialities of 
intellect, some using them to create a civilization, others 
failing to avail themselves of these, although present? 
Thirdly, is the average mentality of the three great 
groups of mankind the same, with a great range of 
distribution of high and low intelligence in one group 
and a small distribution in others? The use of the word 
“race” is often confusing. Some discussions of intellect 
refer to the three primary groups of mankind, the White, 
the Mongolian, and the Negro. Other discussions refer 
to the different divisions of one of these primary groups, 
—the Nordic race, the Alpine, and the Mediterranean. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 63 


Finally, some fail to consider the fact that race and 
nationality are not by any means synonymous terms. 

There may be biological differences in the brain of the 
Negro, the Mongolian, and the White, but this is quite a 
different problem from an inherent difference in the sub- 
divisions of a single group: the Nordic separated in this 
respect from the Mediterranean, for example. It can 
thus be seen that this problem of intellectual endowment 
is not a simple one. Before discussing this question of 
mental equipment, let us consider the criteria for 
separating the three primary groups of man upon the 
physical side. 

Anthropology has been trying for generations to secure 
some definite means for a study of the physical side of 
race. Head-form was considered for a long time as the 
best criterion. The Negro has a long head, though some 
members of the Negro race have manta heads. The 
texture of the hair is believed by some to be a successful 
means of analyzing race. But there is no simple satis- 
factory criterion for establishing a safe test of the 
physical side of race, in spite of its obviousness. We 
know that a typical Negro is black, a typical Mongolian 
yellow, a typical White, white. But there are all shades 
of white, from the pale color of the Scandinavian to the 
darker shades of the Mediterranean peoples. The dark- 
est White peoples are often as dark as some of the Negro 
tribes. There is even a difficulty in distinguishing race 
by using all the criteria available, such as structure of 
hair, color of skin, hair and eyes, head form, and the 
character of the nose. 

If the obviousness of race, physically considered, does 
not give us definite criteria, how can we expect to find 
satisfactory evidence for a judgement on the mental side, 


64 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


where racial inferiority or superiority are not so appar- 
ent? There is no scientific method yet acceptable to 
answer this question one way or the other. It is practi- 
cally impossible to separate the inherent endowment of 
man from the benefits or lack of benefits derived from the 
cultural, the social, and the environmental factors, the 
acquired traits from the inherited. This difficulty is 
especially aggravated when we consider man’s mentality. 

But to return to the main question. How can the 
mental basis of race be approximately determined? 
This subject cen be approached from several angles. A 
physical study of the races and their relative nearness 
to ancestral forms has often been attempted. 

If this comparison is based upon the more general 
physical features, the Negro is found nearest the anthro- 
poid with his receding forehead, broad nose, his prog- 
nathism or projection of the upper jaw. The White or 
Mongolian stand nearest the ape, with the Negro farthest 
away, when relative hairiness, texture of hair, develop- 
ment of lips, and the length and proportion of limbs are 
considered. The impossibility of appraising the relative 
value of these features shows the futility of this line of 
approach. Great inconsistencies are encountered when 
using this physical criterion. The fossil forms of the 
human skull are most like that of the Negro, whereas 
the skull of the typical Negro is always long and narrow, 
totally unlike that of the anthropoid ape.1® 

The size and weight of the brain have been employed 
in the attempt to determine intellect. There seems little 
doubt that the brain-weight of Whites is greater than 
that of most other races, and particularly greater than 
that of the brain of Negroes. There is certainly no. 
individual correlation between size and weight of brain 


Social Origins and Social Continuttres 65 


_and intelligence, excepting of course in pathological cases. 
As a matter of fact, the Eskimo in general seem to have 
the largest heads among all living peoples. The Cro- 
Magnon race, and even some of the specimens of Nean- 
derthal man, far exceed in head capacity any modern 
peoples. 

As regards brain weight, there seems to be some slight 
correlation at the extreme ends of the curve, but this is 
lacking in the middle groups. The series of human 
brains is too meagre for any definite conclusions on this 
point. It is. probably not the size and.- weight~-of the 
brain that counts, but its structure, the nerve-cells and 
fibres. The morphological traits of the brain might give 


an answer to our problem, but unfortunately these have 


not been studied from a racial point of view." 

Physiological experiments on the different races of 
man are not numerous. No definite racial peculiarities 
regarding temperature, pulse-beat, and respiration have 
been found. The bio-chemical examination of races has 
yet to be undertaken. The ductless glands are another 
subject for investigation from a racial standpoint. These 
studies will doubtless open new vistas regarding the 
question of race. Kroeber has made a careful study of 
some of the foregoing points, together with the suscep- 
tibility to disease of the different races, and he finds no 
definite racial correlations.18 

This discussion is already leading us far from the 
question of mental endowment, but the facts, as far as 
present investigations go, relating to physical and physi- 
ological superiority and inferiority, are so complicated 
and embrace so many contradictory features that nothing 
_ definite can be drawn from them at the present time. 
Let us consider next the history of our civilization and 


66 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


that of other peoples. Babbitt notes that Renan, as 
late as the seventies of the last century, said, “The 
sentiment of nationalities is not a hundred years old in 
the world.” 19 We often fail to realize that the time 
relations, as applied to civilization, are relatively so 
extremely slight as compared with the whole history of 
mankind. 

The Egyptians, two thousand years before Christ, 
would regard their culture in quite the same way as we 
regard ours, and would question the possibilities of a 
civilization equalling their among any other people. 
The Greeks in their time would stand in this same posi- 
tion, looking down upon all other nations and question- 
ing the potentialities of all other peoples. The Latins in 
Cesar’s time would certainly have denied that the 
Britons and Germans were inherently equal to them- 
selves. ‘If these northerners possessed the ability of 
the Mediterraneans, they would have given vent to it, 
instead of continuing to live in disorganization, poverty 
ignorance, rudeness, and without great men or products 
of the spirit.” “What,” asks one writer, “had these bar- 
barians ever done to lead one to think that they might 
yet do great things?’ 2° Given a good environment, a 
start of a few thousand years or even less, and a people 
may surge ahead often at an amazing rate. 

Considering the cultures of the world as they now 
stand, that.of whites.has had a longer history than that 
of any other, starting with the Upper Paleolithic of 
Central Europe and continuing in an unbroken series 
up to the present time. The Mongoloid | peoples show 
as a whole the greatest diversity in their range of cul- 
ture. There are Mongolian peoples in all stages of devel- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 67 


opment, from the crudest savages to civilized peoples,— 
the nearest racial relatives of the Manchu are very 
crude Siberian tribes. One branch at least of this race, 
the Chinese, has had a long history of achievement 
behind it, and the Japanese have certainly attained a 
high degree of civilization. Giles, in his Civilization of 
China, writes, “If we go back to the fifteenth century, 
we shall find that the standard of civilization, as the 
term is usually understood, was still much higher in 
China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the famous 
Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, who actu- 
ally lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an 
official under Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the 
magnificence of Chinese cities and the splendor of the 
Chinese court, outrivaled anything he had ever seen or 
heard of.” 2+ 

The diversity of the Mongoloid peoples as regards 
culture is seen in that branch found in America, the 
American Indian. The difference in accomplishment 
between many of the Brazilian tribes and the Mayas 
and Aztecs, both belonging to the same race, are cer- 
tainly as great as that between many of the Negro tribes 
in Africa and certain white peoples a few centuries ago. 

Considering, therefore, the White and Mongolian 
branches of mankind, we find the greatest range of 
cultures among them at different times in their histories 
and also different grades of culture existing simultane- 
ously in the same division. One can say, therefore, that 
there can be little direct “proportional relation” between 
race and culture. A race does not change its inherent 
mental make-up every time a culture advances or 
retreats. 


68 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Finally the Negro and his culture: The strongest 
argument in favor of inherent differences in the three 
primary groups along intellectual and cultural lines is 
found right here. The Negro as a race has not built up 
great civilizations in any way comparable to tijose cre- 
ated by the other two great branches of mankind. The 
Negro failed almost completely to avail himself of the 
influences of Egypt and the Mediterranean area in gen- 
eral. In respect to certain technological processes the 
Negro excels. The smelting of iron, for example, was 
carried out in all probability in Negro Africa before it 
appeared in Europe. The cultures of Benin and Mash- 
onaland stand out above the general level. Trial by 
jury was an invention of the Negro. The relation be- 
tween opportunity and achievement in this connection 
can explain away only a part of this absence from Negro 
Africa and Melanesia of cultures worthy of a place 
among the great civilizations of the world. 

There is a great deal written regarding race psychol- 
ogy. As far as I know there has never been any special 
attempt made to divide the races on the physical side 
and study each division along purely psychological 
lines. There is no such thing as racial psychology in 
the strict scientific sense. Practically the only thing 
that has been done is an attempt to study various racial 
factors in our civilization by means of the so-called 
intelligence tests. This is the age of intelligence- -testing. 
The layman does not hesitate to apply it at all times 
and in all places: parents try it on their children, usually 
with results gratifying to their pride. If applied in the 
experienced hands of a psychologist it does seem to be 
an aid in separating the superior and inferior individuals. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 69 


It is still a debatable question how far the result can 
be interpreted as indicative of innate ability, and how 
far the result reflects the social background of the indi- 
vidual tested. The cultural environment, education in 
the broadest sense of the term, is certainly a factor in 
the outcome. 

The published results of the mental examinations used 
in the United States Army at the time of the World 
War have proved “source material” for observations by 
many varieties of scientific and unscientific investigators. 

For the problem here, the results of these tests upon 
men of various races and of various nationalities are 
worthy of notice, although, as already pointed out, there 
is no means of knowing from the tests themselves what 
factors in the results are due to inherent endowment and 
what to environment. Variation in the ability to use 
the English language must certainly have played some 
part in the results. 

The examinations were rated with letters from A to 
E. The Alpha test was for literates, the Beta test for 
illiterates. Kroeber has made an analysis of the results 
of the examinations, and his figures are presented here, 
together with certain factors which he has “analyzed 
out.” ** He gives comprehensively the results in per- 
centages of individuals in each group,—those below the 
middle grade of C, those with C, and those above C. 


Group and number of individuals Below C C Above C 


Englishmen, 411 9 71 20 
White draft generally, 93,973 24 64 12 
Italians, 4007 63 36 1 
Poles, 382 70 20 .o 


Negroes generally, 18,891 79 20 1 


70 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


As Kroeber comments, “These figures at face value 
seem to show deep group differences in intelligence.” 
The Englishman ranks higher than the drafted white 
man as a whole, but this is to be “complacently explained 
by saying that the English represent in comparative 
purity the Anglo-Saxon or Nordic stock which is also 
the dominant strain among Americans, but which has 
been somewhat contaminated in their case by the immi- 
gration of Latins and Slavs, who rate much lower, as 
shown by the Italians and Poles tested.” Lowest of all 
is the Negro. “But there is one feature that raises sus- 
picion. The Italians and the Poles are too close to the 
Negroes. They stand much nearer to them,in intelligence, 
according to these figures, than they do to the white 
Americans. Can this.... have racial significance? 
Are these Mediterraneans, descendants of the Romans, 
and these Alpines .... only a grade superior to the 
Negro? ‘Something must be wrong’ with the figures: 
that is, they contain another factor besides race.” 
Length of residence in the country, the ability to use 
English, and the social background, are all factors to 
be taken into consideration. It should also be noted 
that the foreigners from Southern Europe are a selected 
group which is most probably inferior both innately and 
culturally. They are “samples” of the lower orders 
whereas North European immigration more fairly repre- 
sents the home population as a whole. 

The difference in grades between the northern and 
southern Negro is shown next. 


Group and number of individuals Below C CGC  AboveC 
Negroes, 5 northern states, 4705 46 51 3 
Negroes, 4 southern states, 6846 86 14 3 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 71 


The northern Negro, with surroundings far more like 
those of the whites among whom he lives, far surpasses 
the southern Negro. He gets ten times as high a pro- 
portion of individuals into the above-C grades, and only 
about half as many in the below-C grades. This, I 
think, may be partially accounted for by the improved 
social surroundings and educational facilities, larger op- 
portunities and a partial loss of the color-line. East 
and others explain this better showing of the northern 
Negro as due to the fact that those who came north 
were the more ambitious and those with relatively higher 
intelligence. It should also be noted that the northern 
Negroes are more largely mulattoes than the southern 
Negroes. Does the admixture of white blood give a 
greater intelligence in and of itself? There is, at pres- 
ent, no proof of this. Social environment must certainly 
explain some of the difference between the northern and 
southern Negroes. 

~The results of the Beta test are next to be considered. 
This was given to men who could not write an intelli- 
gible letter or read a newspaper, or who had had only 
half, or less, of the ordinary grammar-school education, 
together with aliens whose knowledge of English was 
imperfect. 


ALPHA TEST: LITERATES 
Group and number of individuals Below C C Above C 


Englishmen, 374 5 74 21 
White draft generally, 72,618 16 69 15 
Alabama whites, 697 19 72 9 
New York negroes, 1,021 21 72 7 
Italians, 575 33 64 3 
Negroes generally, 5,681 54 44 a 


Alabama negroes, 262 56 44 ( 4) 


72 Social Origins and Social Continuities 
BETA TEST: ILLITERATES 


White draft generally, 26,012 58 41 1 
Italians, 2,888 64 35 1 
New York negroes, 440 72 28 0 
Poles, 263 76 24 ( 4) 
Alabama whites, 384 80 20 0 
Negroes generally, 11,633 91 9 ( 2) 
Alabama negroes, 1,043 97 3 Crd) 


In the Alpha tests the New York negro has nearly the 
Same percentage as the Alabama white. In the Beta 
tests he is slightly above the Alabama white. This may 
“mean that bringing up in a certain part of the country 
has as much to do with intelligence, even in the rough, 
as has Caucasian or colored parentage.” 

The literate negroes, irrespective of section, slightly 
surpasses the illiterate whites. It should be noted that 
within the same section the white recruits always sur- 
pass the colored. Alabama whites may make a poor 
showing, but they are above the general negro per- 
centage. Illiterate whites in general surpass illiterate 
negroes. Is this difference due to race? “As long as 
the color-line remains drawn, a differential factor of 
cultural advantage is included; and how strong this is 
there is no present means of knowing. It is possible 
that some of the difference between sectionally and 
educationally equalized groups of whites and negroes 
is really innate and racial. But it is also possible that 
most or all of it is environmental. Neither possibility 
can be demonstrated from the unrefined data at present 
available.” 

In a study made by Pyle on the relative intelligence 
of negro and white school-children, it was found that 
the mental ability of the negro children was two-thirds 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 73 


that of the white boys and girls. Negro girls ap- 
proached the white girls in ability slightly more closely 
than negro boys approached white boys. There was a 
tendency for the difference between the two races to 
decrease with increasing age. One-fifth of the negroes 
were equal or superior to the average whites. Three- 
quarters of the whites were equal or superior to the 
negroes. When the colored children were divided into 
two groups, arranged on a basis of social surroundings, 
Negro boys of the better social class possessed about 
four-fifths of the intelligence of white boys,—an increase 
from two-thirds when all the negroes were considered. 
This increase is explained by some as due to the fact 
that the mentally more alert have provided themselves 
with a better social environment. This is no doubt a 
factor that should be taken into consideration. But it 
is as impossible of proof as the explanation that the 
social surroundings in and of themselves may explain 
this tendency of negroes socially selected to approach the 
norm of white children. 

The results of the different tests were interesting. In 
such experiments as substitution and controlled associa- 
tion the negroes were less than half as good as the 
whites. In free association and some other tests they 
were nearly as good. In quickness of perception and 
discrimination and in reaction, the negroes were equal 
to or superior to white children. 

The same investigator conducted another series of 
experiments upon the mental deviation of rural and 
urban school-children.24 He found that the country- 
bred children possessed about three-fourths the mental- 
ity of the city-bred. This is only one-twelfth of a 
point higher than his results in comparing the negro with 


74 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


the white. Better teachers and better social environ- 
ment are to a great extent accountable for this difference 
between the country and the city child. It is certainly 
not to be explained by race. He found less difference 
between Chinese children and whites than between urban 
and rural American white children. 

The question of human hybrids ought to furnish a 
prolific field for the investigation of intellect. Some 
work on this subject has been carried out in Hawaii, but 
the results, as far as I know, have not been published. 
The investigation by Hunter on the relation of the 
amount of Indian blood in Indian-white mixtures to 
intelligence is available for study and is presented 
here.?5 


Resutts or Hunter anp Rowe Tests on INDIANS AND 
INDIAN-WHITE MIxTuRES 


Below At Above 
Race age group age group age group 
Full blood 93.2 22 46 
3% Indian 90.9 0.7 8.4 
% Indian 81.6 10 17.4 
4 Indian 74.3 0.0 25.7 
Total average 85.0 97 14.02 


He found a positive correlation with an increasing 
degree of white blood, which he thinks indicates “a racial 
difference, probably of intelligence, although possibly of 
temperament.” He suspects that the Indian full-blood 
has better social surroundings than those with white 
mixture. I feel convinced, in my own mind, that the 
reverse is true: namely, that the half-whites are better 
off physically, socially, and educationally, than the full- 
bloods, and that an increase in intelligence among mixed 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 75 


bloods is to be correlated, in part at least, with a better 
social environment. 

The influence of a white parent must necessarily make 
itself felt. It would have a far greater and better social 
value in the case of an Indian-white mixture than in that 
of a Negro-white mixture, as in the former case of misce- 
genation there is far less social stigma attached than in 
that of a Negro and a White. 

Garth made some tests on Indian-white mixtures with- 
out differentiating the amount of blood of each race 
represented.*® His figures show the same trend as those 
of Hunter. He plainly admits that social status and 
education are factors to be considered in the differences 
between his figures and the norm for white children 
which he uses. 

One might well ask at this stage: Why not go into 
Australia, for example, and examine the aboriginal pop- 
ulation there by means of intelligence tests? This has 
not been done because, as far as I know, no tests have 
yet been devised suitable for a primitive people. The 
familiar tests used on European and American popula- 
tions with a more or less definite cultural environment 
could not fairly be employed on a people who have an 
entirely different social background. These tests will 
undoubtedly come in time, but there will always be the 
difficulty of a standard equation between tests for 
civilized man and tests for primitive peoples. Even the 
Beta tests for illiterates presuppose an acquaintance 
with a backgroud of culture which is American, not 
Australian nor South American. Test 6 of the Beta group 
is to supply the missing parts of objects given in pictures. 
Two people are playing tennis with no net; two are 
bowling with no balls; there is an electric-light bulb 


76 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


with no filament. It is readily admitted that this test 
would not be a fair one for aboriginal peoples and it 
may safely be presumed that some of the illiterates of 
the Army Draft had never seen a game of tennis nor a 
bowling match, and even, perhaps, never an electric- 
light bulb. 

Consider the white peoples as a whole. Here we have 
one primary group, commonly divided into three races. 
We hear much about the supremacy of those of Nordic 
blood, as I have already noted. Several attempts have 
been made to prove this. Brigham, in his Study of 
American Intelligence, tries to get figures for this, but 
the results have been very rightly and very seriously 
questioned. There are absolutely no data at present 
available to prove that the Nordics are equipped bio- 
logically with a greater capacity than that possessed by 
the other two white races. And yet what a part the 
Nordic hypothesis has played in current discussions as 
a weapon held over the actions of individuals and of 
states! * 


* Barnes after considering the influence of the World War 
in causing a “resurgence of racial nonsense” writes very truly, 
“Another source of deception has been the reappearance of 
a neo-Gobinesque literature. In the pre-war literature there 
was one notorious book of this sort, Chamberlain’s Foundations 
of the Nineteenth Century. To this was added in 1917 the most 
mischievous book since Gobineau, Madison Grant’s The Passing 
of the Great Race, which advanced the thesis that all western 
civilization had been due mainly to the contributions of the 
Nordic blonds. This preposterous doctrine has been exploited 
with variations by William McDougall, Lothrop Stoddard, C. C. 
Josey, C. S. Burr, and C. W. Gould, until now it has reached such 
a grotesque state that attempts are being made to interpret the 
American Civil War on the Nordic blond hypothesis. Fortu- 
nately, most reputable historians have remained immune from 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 17 


If it were possible to arrange the members of a race, 
those belonging to the genius class on the one hand, 
those with average minds in the middle group, and 
those with feeble intellects below, the range might well 
be greater among some races than among others. The 
White race may have a greater number of men of genius 
per 100,000 of the population than the Negro race pos- 
sesses. It certainly seems as if this were true. Fischer 
suggests that whites differ from negroes in this respect, 
while not exceeding them in average intelligence.2® But 
it must be remembered that genius may pass unrecog- 
nized, owing to lack of opportunity to make itself felt 
among savages. He “does not get into the record.” 
Primitive society must have had a fair amount of genius 
among its members, to account for certain well-organized 
efforts that show high mental traits. 

The Maya calendar functioned without the loss of 
a day for 2000 years, until it was broken up by Spanish 
priests. Marginal corrections were applied to take care 
of the variation in the year and the true solar year—a 
means more accurate than our method of leap year. It 
was not until 1582 that the Julian day was invented, 
which corresponds to the Maya day count,—2000 years 
after the same principle had been adopted by the 
Mayas. 29 

It has been shown by the mental tests upon Indian and 
Negro children that a small percentage of the latter were 
superior to the average white. Garth states that many 
full-blood Indians attain and even excel the perform- 





the Nordic hysterics, but it has debauched the opinions of not a 
few publicists and lecturers and has gained immense popularity. 
It will require a generation of persistent effort on the part of 
scholars to eradicate this distressing source of error.” ” 


78 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


ance of mixed-bloods. Where the number of the indi- 
viduals studied is small, excessive values,—extremes in 
the measurement,—are likely to be due to the unrepre- 
sentative character of the sample. Hayes has postu- 
lated a curve to show that the average intelligence 
of one race may be about the same as that of another, 
but that there would be a larger number of high intel- 
lects in one case and a greater number of low intellects 
in the other.°° This suggestion is as impossible of proof 
in the present state of our knowledge as that of any 
other relating to innate mental equipment. 

Before trying to sum up this question of the relative 
mentality of the different groups of mankind, let us 
consider for a moment those socially handicapped among 
white populations. What about achievements among the 
“poor whites” of the south, the miner, the peasant? 
Everyone will admit that the majority of mankind of 
whatever race and of whatever station in life do not use 
their minds for thinking out their own problems, much 
less those affecting society at large. They are creatures 
of habit, and accept in general what they are told, 
whether or not they believe it. There is little reflection 
and little individual thinking.31 

Is this lack of achievement due to an inherent mental 
deficiency or to a suppression of all stimuli from social 
surroundings? Send the “poor white” or the peasant to 
school,—in an enlightened community,—and some of his 
deficiencies, at least, tend to disappear. 

Race prejudice bulks very large in any decision upon 
this subject. As has been suggested, take the attitude of 
the average Californian or Australian on the Mongolian, 
of the Texan on the Mexican, the Southerner on the 
Negro, the Westerner on the local tribes of Indians, and 


Social Origins and Social Continuties 79 


the Englishman on the Hindu. In the case of the Mon- 
golian in California and the Negro in the South, we 
find in both cases social maladjustment of an alien 
people. In the case of the Indian and the Hindu, we 
find the alien people to be those on top, trying to impose 
a new and higher social system upon a native popu- 
lation. Not one of these cases presents a normal ground 
for judgment of innate intelligence. 

In summing up this question of the mentality of dif- 
ferent races, it should be borne in mind that it 1s not 
possible to prove the question one way or the other if 
scientific data are demanded on which to base a decision. 
A priori one can say that there seems to be some reason 
to think that the Negro race as a whole fails to measure 
up to the intellectual standard of the other two great 
eroups of mankind, the White and the Mongolian. If 
however, we free our minds as much as possible from 
prejudice, and take into consideration the emotional 
factor present in our decision, we should hesitate to deny 
that many of the deficiencies of the Negro are due not 
to an intellectual capacity, but to a social and, to a 
lesser extent, physical environment which are decidedly 
unfavorable.1® 

Vernon Kellogg writes, in Mind and Heredity, that 
the work of Woodworth (1912), done twelve years ago, 
“pointed out that what studies of racial differences 
in mental traits had been made up to that time, 
failed to reveal any pronounced or even any very 
readily definable differences of this character among the 
races studied.” Kellogg adds, “More recent studies seem 
to confirm this conclusion.” *? 

It should be clearly realized that the residual qualities 
remaining in culture after taking out the effects of envi- 


80 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


ronment are the result of intellect. The range of indi- 
vidual endowment is then the next factor of importance. 
That this is great is proved on all sides. After environ- 
ment and individual ability are factored out, the 
remainder is racial. 

There is a final question relating to mentality, that 
of the processes of thought. Does the savage use differ- 
ent methods of logic in his mental processes? Most 
anthropologists assume a certain similarity in the modes 
of thought, shared alike by the savage and by civilized 
man, a psychical unity for all mankind. 

Lévy-Bruhl and others of the French School deny the 
validity of this.?3 They argue that as mentality is a 
collective product and the result of social environment, 
so this social mind changes as social environment 
changes; and therefore, naturally, the mental processes 
of primitive man are distinctly different from our own. 

Any object used in a religious ceremony, according to 
this theory, takes on a kind of aura, becoming “sat- 
urated” with magical associations that cannot be sep- 
arated from the object itself. The natural world thus 
presents itself to the mind of primitive man as something 
quite different from the picture we should obtain from 
viewing the same phenomena. The author uses the word 
“mystical” to designate this trait of primitive mind. The 
“law of participation” is, he thinks, a fundamental prin- 
ciple of primitive mentality. Objects participate mysti- 
cally in one another. A man may be in one place and 
at the same time in another, an animal may be here 
before you and at the same time appear in a dream >a 
man is not only similar but identical with his name or 
with his image. 

This mystical participation unites men and animals, 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 81 


objects and actions, into “closely related groups that 
have nothing to do with objective form and substance, 
and are based solely on ceremonial, magical, and other 
supernatural connections.” The peculiarity of the col- 
lective ideas is that they are “pre-logical or a-logical, 
meaning by this not that they necessarily contradict 
logic, but that logical processes are frequently and even 
typically disregarded in their formation.” 

Two questions immediately present themselves. Are 
the mental processes of primitive man always illogical, 
and are the mental processes of civilized man always 
logical? We can easily answer, No, to both questions. 
Primitive man, granted his premises, usually has a rea- 
son, and, from his point of view, a logical reason, for 
all his acts. It is also certainly true that many of the 
acts of civilized man are based upon anything but careful 
logical premises. The continuity of human achievement 
presents no hiatus where man passes from the pre- 
logical to the logical system of reason. Both are present 
among all peoples in all grades of culture. This takes 
away the foundation stone of the Lévy-Bruhl theory 
which makes a sharp distinction between primitive and 
civilized society. 

There may well be a confusion of the man and his 
image, the man and his name. Religion overlaps all the 
other fields of savage thought and of action. It plays 
a part in the planting of corn. Religion and the fine 
arts, religion and natural science, religion and law, are 
all related. Some have laid stress upon this confusion 
of categories, but it is not a confusion from the point 
of view of primitive man. There is simply a difference 
in our classification of subjects from that of the savage. 
Somewhat the same confusion was present in our cul- 


82 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


ture only a short time ago. Astronomy and human life 
gave us astrology; botany and magic gave us medicine. 
Dewey has summarized the emotional and intellectual 
characteristics of primitive man as given by Spencer. 
“He is explosive and chaotic in feeling, improvident, 
childishly mirthful, intolerant of restraint... . atten- 
tive to meaningless detail and incapable of selecting 
the facts from which conclusions may be drawn, with 
feeble grasp of thought, incapable of rational surprise, 
incurious, lacking in ingenuity and constructive imagina- 
tion.” The savage, as the field anthropologist knows 
him, after an intimate study, corresponds only in a 
few respects to Spencer’s description. Dewey, in a 
well-known passage, says, “Immediacy of interest, 
attention, and deed is the essential trait of the 
nomad hunter. He has no cultivated plants, no system 
of appliances for tending and regulating plants and 
animals; he does not even anticipate the future by drying 
meat. When food is abundant he gorges himself, but 
does not save... Now such facts as these are usually 
given a purely negative interpretation. They are used 
as proofs of the incapacities of the savage. But in fact 
they are parts of a very positive psychosis, which taken 
in itself and not merely measured against something 
else, requires and exhibits highly specialized skill, and 
affords intense satisfactions—psychical and social satis- 
factions, not merely sensuous indulgences. The savage’s 
repugnance to what we term a higher plane of life is not 
due to stupidity or dullness or apathy—or to any other 
merely negative qualities . . . His aversion is due to the 
fact that in the new occupations he does not have so clear 
or so intense a sphere for the display of intellectual and 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 83 


practical skill, or such opportunity for a dramatic play 
of emotion. ... 

“No one has ever called a purely hunting race dull, 
apathetic or stupid. Much has been written regarding 
the aversion of savages to higher resources of civiliza- 
tion—their refusal to adopt iron tools or weapons, for 
example, and their sodden absorption in routine habits 
... Their attention is mobile and fluid as is their 
life; they are eager to the point of greed for anything 
which will fit into their dramatic situations so as to 
intensify skill and increase emotion... It is when 
the native is forced into an alien use of the new resources, 
instead of adapting them to his own ends, that his work- 
manship, skill, and artistic taste uniformly degenerate. 

“Competent testimony is unanimous as to the quick- 
ness and accuracy of apprehension evinced by the natives 
in coming in contact even for the first time with com- 
plicated constructive devices of civilized man, provided 
only these appliances have a direct or immediate action- 
index.” 34 

In spite of some exceptions, early society is conserva- 
tive. Reflection is far rarer than imitation. Tradition 
of the elders has been called “the instinct of society.” 
If everyone is imitating everyone else the result is no 
movement in either direction. That there is movement 
and hence change,—however slowly accomplished in 
some societies,—is proved on all sides. The fact that we 
find peoples speaking the same languages and with a 
similar early history, occupying different scales of cul- 
ture, doing different things in different ways, proves that 
originality must have been present to inaugurate these 
changes. The tendency to change may be small or 
great. The incentive depends upon many factors:—a 


84 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


crisis of war bringing about the selections of a leader; the 
crisis of a deplenished food supply, leading to migration 
or to the development of new methods of raising food; 
new ideas brought in from another people by conquest or 
by subjection. 

The greatest variation in the attitude towards cultural 
novelties is seen in the modern world. One modern 
writer, assimilating conservatism to a disease, has given 
it a name,—“neophobia,” a form of disease that has been 
recognized for years. He cites a letter by Creevey 
against a bill introduced into the British Parliament in 
1825 against the construction of the first railway, and 
Napier in the House of Commons against the introduc- 
tion of steam power into the English navy. Walter 
Scott called coal gas for lighting a pestilential innova- 
tion, Byron satirized it in verse. The introduction of 
bath tubs in the United States in 1840 was considered 
by doctors as dangerous to health; and, as late as 1845, 
there was a municipal ordinance in Boston that such tubs 
were unlawful except on medical advice.2®> And we all 
remember an aged relative who vowed she would never 
ride in “one of those automobiles.” Conservatism today 
is considered old-fashioned. And yet the world needs © 
conservatism as a balance for new ideas. 


In the first chapter I tried to show that culture is not 
mainly made up of cougenital factors. I have carried this 
thesis a step further and endeavored to point out that 
society is thus not a biological organism. Man’s intel- 
lectual equipment, iuade possible by a large brain, 
coupled with his possession of articulate speech, places 
human society in an entirely different category from 
that found among non-human animals. Individual dif- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 85 


ferences, race, and environment should be considered as 
factors in the diversities of cultures. All play a part, 
but not one occupies the entire rdle in the drama of 
peoples. 

Many of the more common ideas regarding the nature 
of the savage are not founded upon facts. He is not 
a creature of unbridled passions, but is held in check 
by numerous tabus. The acuity of his senses, his power 
of concentration, and his emotional qualities do not differ 
greatly from corresponding qualities in civilized man. 
As regards intellect, we cannot at present prove that 
he has an inferior endowment in mental equipment. Such 
a postulated theory may be advanced, but it cannot be 
derived from any scientific data at present available. 
It should also be pointed out that superiority does not 
consist of intellect alone but that other unmeasurable 
qualities which are relative to emotional and volitional 
make-up may contribute to the preéminence of a people. 

According to the common view, “Man is many, and 
civilization one.” The reverse is one of the theses of 
this book: “Man is one, civilizations are many.” 


CHAPTER III 
THE CRISES IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 


IT'HERE are almost as many different types of persons 
in a primitive community as in a modern one; and, 
furthermore, there are various kinds of societies which 
can be classed as rude, ranging all the way from that of 
the lowly Australian and the Bushman to the more 
complicated life of the Polynesian. 

The mistake is often made of envisaging a typical 
Savage, or, as some have called him, a “natural man,” 
and a standard society to which he belongs: . There is 
neither the one nor the other. For this reason it is 
perhaps a mistake even to attempt a discussion of the 
life of such a hypothetical individual; as there is, in 
reality, no such creature. But out of the mass of facts 
concerning the daily routine of a savage, certain practices 
stand out as common among many peoples,—a social 
and religious etiquette observed in the various crises of 
life. 

Mention has already been made of the suggestibility 
of primitive man. This is especially noticeable in regard 
to the unseen forces of his environment. He is always 
alert in the face of the imagined dangers of evil powers 
who wait in a sort of ethereal ambush to work harm. 
Practically all the observances that will be noted are 
based on the attempt to placate these unseen powers 
with the request that good spirits come in their stead. 

86 | 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 87 


The modern conception of the savage is that of a 

lazy creature lying about under a tree, or, where there 
are no trees, in the shade of his hut; his wife, the beast 
of burden and the work horse for the family. It is 
needless to say that this picture does not accord with 
the facts. Primitive man in his own environment is 
a very much occupied person, As far as observations 
go, almost_every.moment.of his time is taken up with 
the pursuit, of his livelihood and...with..endeavors_ to 
provide diversion for these hostile influences. There is 
no rest from his vigil regarding the unseen powers. An 
‘astonishing amount of time is consumed in his religious 
practices. A successful hunt or a plentiful harvest. must 
needs be followed by an offering of first game or first 
fruits to the gods. _ 
- Savage life is seldom as unvaried as commonly sup- 
posed. Seasonal occupations relating to game or to 
planting and the harvest, the preparation for the elab- 
orate rites and their celebration, the various festivals, 
sometimes in an almost unbroken series,—all serve to 
vary a life which otherwise might be monotonous. There 
are far wider and richer interests in the life of primitive 
man than in that of many of the modern workers in an 
industrial community. The “immediacy of interest” is 
always present. ‘The play of the emotions along the 
scale of want, effort, success, or failure,’ writes Dewey, 
in speaking of a hunting race, “is the very type, psychi- 
cally speaking, of the drama. The breathless interest 
with which we hang upon the movement of play or 
novel are reflexes of the mental attitudes evolved in the 
hunting vocation.” 4 

I do not follow Dewey when he adds that in the 
agricultural stage of society, when the emotions of the 


88 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


hunt are gone, the drudgery of field labor is handed 
over to the women and the men take up war to supply 
the excitements formerly furnished by the hunt. It 
seems to me that altogether too much attention is paid 
to warfare as an habitual occupation of primitive 
peoples. 

The observances occurring in the history of an individ- 
ual which are to be discussed here, center around the 
crises of life——birth, adolescence, marriage, and death. 
Rites are undertaken at each of these times,—“rites of 
passage,” as Van Gennep calls them, conducting the 
individual from one state or situation to another. If 
each society is considered a sort of house divided into 
chambers, in civilized life passage from room to room 
is easy; whereas in primitive society the compartments 
are isolated from each other and movement from one 
to another is difficult. Rites are necessary in passing 
from one room to the next. Even among more developed 
peoples the ceremonies of baptism, confirmation, mar- 
riage, and death, are, in many respects, “rites of 
passage.” 

Reflection and discussion regarding these inevitable 
crises lead to some idea of supposed cause and effect, and 
various “controls” are undertaken which play a part in 
the development of magic, that which corresponds to 
science, and the general idea of souls and spirits. The 
medicine man, the sorcerer, the physician, the priest, 
the judge, the teacher, and the artist, often owe a large 
part of their development to these crises.? 

. The “rites of passage” abundantly illustrate the two 
_ fields of magic: contagious and symbolic, both founded 
upon the misapplication of the laws of cause and effect; 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 89 


the first based upon the idea of contagion, and the second 
upon the belief that like produces like. 


BirtH 


It seems safe to say that among a few peoples pro- 
creation is not understood to be the result of sexual 
intercourse. Attis was the Adonis of Western Asia, a 
god of vegetation. His mother, Nana, was a virgin, 
who conceived by putting a ripe almond or a pome- 
granate in her bosom. Such tales of virgin mothers 
are common. In Phrygian cosmogony, an almond fig- 
ured as the father of all things. In Palestine, to this 
day, it is believed that a woman may conceive by the 
spirit of her dead husband. In the Finnish epic, the 
Kalevala, conception is brought about by eating a 
cranberry. 

Among some of the tribes in central and northern 
Australia, conception is believed to be the result of the 
entrance into the body of the woman of an animal 
spirit. The child is thus the reincarnated spirit of this 
animal. The spirit may be induced to enter the body 
of the female of its species, and thus animal birth is 
accounted for in the same way as human nativity, 
Among the Kiriwina of British New Guinea the origin 
of conception is traced back to the soul of a dead person 
entering the body of a woman as a spirit child. 

Pregnancy is a time of great concern, far more for 
the welfare of the community and of the future child than 
for the health and comfort of the woman. A special 
place of residence is often demanded for the expectant 
mother. She is abnormal socially quite as much as 
physically, and various prophylactic measures must be 
taken to prevent her from working harm. Isolation is 


Seen wa 


90 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


only one of the precautions taken. Tabus are usually 
necessary at this time. 

The old-fashioned idea of pre-natal influence is seen 
in some of the prohibitions. Among the northwest 
Amazons a pregnant woman must not eat the meat of the 
capibara, a rodent, else the child will have teeth like 
the rodent. Paca is tabu, or the child will be spotted 
like this animal. 

There is a rather widespread belief that knots and 
closed objects are objectionable at the time of child- 
bearing. Among the Saxons of Transylvania, there must 
be no knots on the garments of a woman in labor, be- 
cause they would interfere with delivery. All the locks 
in the house, on boxes or on doors, are unlocked for the 
same reason. Roman religion required that the women 
who took the part of the goddess of childbirth should 
have no knot tied on their persons. 

Tabus must, in some cases, be observed by the hus- 
band as well as by the wife. He may not be allowed 
to cover his eyes during his wife’s pregnancy, and Pliny 
tells us that to sit with clasped hands beside a woman 
in this condition was enough to cast a malignant spell 
on her. On the principle of symbolic magic, this would 
thwart the free course of events. Among the Yukaghir, 
a Siberian tribe, the fat of the cow or of the reindeer or 
larch gum are forbidden at this time, but horse’s fat 
may be eaten. The woman must raise her feet high in 
walking, and must push stones away from her path, 
symbolizing the removal of obstructions at childbirth. 
She must never turn back on setting out for a certain 
place. 

The woman is usually considered unclean during this 
period, and a quarantine may exist both before and after 


Social Origins and Social Continwties 91 


the birth of a child. She cannot usually be reinstated 
in her home and social group until she has passed through 
some purification ceremony. This is entirely compar- 
able with the “churching of women” in the Christian 
Church. This is a liturgical form of thanksgiving after 
childbirth, borrowed from the Jewish Church, and orig- 
inating in the Mosaic regulation as to purification as 
given in Leviticus, x1r. 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto 
the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived 
seed, and borne a man child, then she shall be unclean 
seven days; according to the days of the separation for 
her infirmity shall she be unclean... And she shall 
then continue in the blood of her purifying three and 
thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come 
into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be 
fulfilled.” This contagion of uncleanliness, a pollution, 
is, of course, exactly similar to the contagious character 
of holiness met with in many parts of the religious ritual. 

Birth itself is mysterious. Much has been made of 
the ease with which children are brought into the world 
by primitive people. Owing to the large number of 
skeletons of newly-born babies found in archeological 
excavations, and the bodies of gravid mothers with the 
foetus, we realize that infant mortality was probably 
greater than is commonly supposed. In general, how- 
ever, it may be said that the danger at childbirth is 
mainly a spiritual one. 

The period of quarantine observed by the woman is 
often extended to include the newly-born infant. There 
is a double cause for the precautions taken; to prevent 
the contamination of society by the child, and to prevent 
harm from coming to him, The evil spirits are especially 


92 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


prone to work at this time. Not only are charms hung 
about the infant, but the umbilical cord must be dis- 
posed of in some special way, and a ceremonial bath or 
baptism is often resorted to as a kind of purification. 
The birth of twins is considered with great disfavor. 
Frequently one of them is killed. Sometimes both suffer 
death. 

The curious custom of the couvade, the lying-in of 
the father, is found among many peoples widely sepa- 
rated in time, as well as in culture; as the Basques of the 
Pyrenees, who practiced it until one or two centuries 
ago, the Caribs of Guiana, and some of the Indians of 
Brazil. Strabo relates that the Iberian women, after 
the examples of the Celts, Thracians, and Scythians, quit 
their beds as soon as they were delivered, and gave them 
up to their husbands, whom they tended. This distribu- 
tion of this custom illustrates, perhaps better than that 
of any other, similar results arrived at independently by 
two or more peoples. The couvade consists of the father 
taking to his bed or his hammock on the birth of a child. 
He is carefully tended, and surrounded by certain rigor- 
ous and definite tabus. This custom was explained by 
Tylor in his evolutionary theory of society as appearing 
at a definite stage of progress when man is passing from 
reckoning descent through the mother to that where 
father-descent is achieved. It was an attempt to push 
the woman into the background, and to emphasize the 
father’s importance in the family. It has already been 
seen that this theory of monotypical evolution is funda- 
mentally wrong, and its application to the couvade can- 
not be accepted. 

Many peoples believe, as do the Ainu, that as the 
mother gives the child his body, so the father gives him 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 93 


his soul. The close spiritual connection between the 
father and the child makes it necessary for the father 
to protect him. He does this in some cases by lying-in 
and refraining from certain actions which might, through 
magic, injure the child. It may also be suggested that 
the couvade is, in some cases, due to a desire to attract 
attention away from the mother, so that the evil spirits 
may leave her alone and try their harmful influence on 
the father, who is better fortified to withstand this evil. 

In a few instances, there seems to be the necessity of 
a formal introduction of the child to the world at large 
before he can rightly be considered a member of society. 
This would mark the passage of the infant from the 
world from which he came to his present surroundings. 
An Omaha Indian infant was not considered a member of 
human society until his advent had been ceremonially 
announced, so that he might assume his accepted place 
in the community. The rite took place on the eighth 
day after birth, and served as a supplication to the 
spirits of the heavens, the air, and the earth, for the 
safety of the child. In it the infant is pictured as about 
to travel a rugged road stretching over four hills, mark- 
ing the progress through the stages of infancy, youth, 
manhood, and old age. The child wears a pair of moc- 
casins with a small hole cut in the sole. This is done 
in order that “if a messenger from the spirit world 
should come and say to him, ‘I have come for you,’ he 
could answer, ‘I cannot go on a Journey,—my moccasins 
are worn out.’”? It is an indirect prayer that the 
infant may have a long life. 

Primitive man is constantly praying to the gods, and 
he often expects a definite answer. Prayer is the word 
to the gods; revelation shown by means of divination 


94 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


is the answer from the gods. Some savages refrain from 
carrying out the simplest acts of their daily routine 
without obtaining some indication whether their course 
is correct and pleasing to the gods. Festivals, journeys, 
planting and harvesting, are often undertaken only after 
a favorable response has been obtained. 

At birth divination is often employed. It is all-im- 
portant to make certain that a favorable life is in store 
for the child. If not, means are taken to cancel the 
bad future by anticipating its evils or by placation of 
some kind. This idea runs through folklore and myth- 
ology. After the birth of Meleager, the Fates appeared 
and foretold that the life of the child should last no 
longer than a certain brand then burning upon the 
hearth, Althea, the boy’s mother, seized and quenched 
the brand and carefully preserved it while Meleager 
grew to boyhood, youth, and man’s estate. 

The “fating of the babe” is, of course, an act of divi- 
nation. Among some of the modern Greeks, the Fates 
are invited to be present after the birth of a child ata 
feast. At Kassus on the Aigean, these spirits are pre- 
sumed to appear seven days after birth. The nurse, 
after suspending and incensing the infant, utters an 
appeal to the Mere, asking them to arrive and bestow 
a happy destiny. The child is then dressed in the best 
garments of the father and mother. A table is set, 
on which are placed three rolls of bread, and in the 
center a basin of honey with three newly made candles 
on the rim. These are lighted; one is named after 
Christ, a second after the Virgin, and the third after 
John the Baptist. The creed is recited and the Saint 
whose candle is first consumed is hailed as the patron 
of the new-comer. The Mere@ are then supposed to ap- 


Social Origins and Social Continuties 95 


pear, “to fate” the child and to accept something from 
the table. This rite was found throughout the Roman 
world, and continued into the Middle Ages. Modern 
fairy tales abound in allusions to this ceremony. Fairies 
are invited to the christening of a heroine, on whom they 
bestow their several gifts. The title of god-mother 
bestowed on the fairies of nursery tales exhibits the com- 
bination of pagan and Christian ceremonies. * 

Among a few peoples, some of the Australian tribes, 
for example, there is a sex totem, or “patron,” to which 
each child is entitled. Each of the sexes has its special 
animal whose name each individual of the sex bears, 
regarding the animal as his or her brother or sister 
respectively. Among the Kurnai, all the men are called 
‘“emu-wrens” and all the women “superb warblers.” If the 
men kill an emu-wren they are attacked by the women, 
and if the women kill a warbler they are punished 
by the men. These totems are quite distinct from the 
clan totems and from the guardian spirit of the individual. 


Tue NAME 


The relation between an individual and his name is 
a very intimate one. The name is, to all intents and 
purposes, the individual, just as much as an arm or & 
leg. The sacredness of the name and its selection are 
important factors. The Eskimo say that a man con- 
sists of three parts,—his body, his soul, and his name. 
Just as a person may be injured by an incantation over 
something which has been in contact with his body, 
so he may be harmed by having his name used in con- 
nection with an oath. The oath and its efficacy in 
working evil have had an interesting history, which can- 
not be gone into here. The fear in the heart of the 


96 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


savage that his name may be used wrongfully is so 
strong that there is a common custom of keeping the 
real name secret and having a second one by which he 
is known in the community. This is fictitious, so that 
even if used it cannot work harm. This power of the 
name is seen under several aspects. The Dyaks of Borneo 
will change their names after an illness, so that the evil 
spirit, if he should return, would not recognize them. 
There is an avoidance in speaking specifically of the 
dead. The name of the god of the Jews and the Semitic 
Arabs could not be mentioned; Allah, the Mighty One, 
being used by the latter. The Jewish law, “Take not 
the name of the Lord in vain,” became one of the Ten 
Commandments. Among some of the Polynesians not 
only was the name of the king prohibited, but any syl- 
lables composing it were tabu wherever found. This 
meant, on the accession of a new ruler, that many words 
had to be dropped from the vocabulary and new ones 
substituted. 5 

There is no set time among all peoples for obtaining 
the name. It may be given at birth and be taken from 
a day of the year, as often in the Latin countries, where 
the name of the saint of the day of birth is taken. It may 
be a name taken from a sort of copyrighted list belong- 
ing to a division of the tribe to which a person belongs, 
or it may designate the order of his birth in relation to 
his brothers and sisters. Certain names are auspicious, 
others are unlucky. It may well be that those denoting 
unfavorable things are most desired, as there is then 
no danger that the gods will be attracted to people 
bearing names of unlikely objects. 

The selection of a name by chance is a custom found 
among many peoples. St. John Chrysostom, one of the 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 97 


leaders of the Greek Church in the fourth century, in 
his commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to the 
Corinthians comments on the practice in his day of 
naming several candles and of bestowing on the infant 
the appellation belonging to that which lasted longest. 

Among the northern Athabascans the father loses 
his name on the birth of the first son, who takes the 
name of his father. Among the Zuni of the Southwest, 
a very young child in the family is often called by 
some American name,—his true name being secret; so 
that we have not only Billy, but Billy’s father, Billy’s 
grandfather. There is no personality in the name Billy, 
so that it is perfectly safe for every member of the 
family to use it. As a special exhibition of friendship, 
two men will exchange their names. There is some- 
times an idea of property in names, as they can be 
loaned, sold, and even pawned, among a few people. 

Finally, in the discussion of the infant, only one other 
point needs to be mentioned. Many primitive tribes 
show head deformation,—a flattening of the frontal 
bone or of some other part of the cranium. This may be 
an accidental process, resulting from the infant being 
strapped into a cradle; or it may be intentional, and 
undertaken as a result of a desire to conform to a tribal 
type of beauty. Curiously enough, neither of these 
methods of deformation seems to have any effect upon 
the development of the brain. When it cannot grow in 
one direction, it grows in another. 

Here may be interpolated a very striking parallel be- 
tween a much-criticised custom among present-day 
mothers and the practice found among the Germans of 
the first century of the Christian Era. Tacitus, in speak- 
ing of the German tribes, writes, “There then they are, 


98 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


the children, in every house, filling out amid nakedness 
and squalor into the girth of limb and frame which is 
to our people a marvel. Its own mother suckles each at 
her breast; they are not passed on to nurse-maids and 
wet-nurses.”’ 


EDUCATION 


The early training of youth in primitive communities 
is often far more effective than is commonly supposed. 
It is a sort of apprentice system, and imitation is the 
basis of instruction. Agriculture, hunting, pottery-mak- 
ing, weaving, are all taught by means of play. The 
Pueblo children learn the appearance of the gods by 
playing with dolls representing the different deities. 
Implicit obedience is demanded, and there seems to be 
an ever-present respect_for the elders. 

On the side of influencing behavior, there is often a dis- 
tinct part played by stories and fables. Parsons has 
called attention to the fact that the supernatural sanction 
plays a nursery réle as in civilization. Santa Claus writes 
down the names of the good and bad children in his book, 
the “bogey man” carries off naughty children: all these 
things, famous in our childhood, but abolished in the 
new teachings of youth, have their parallels among 
savages. Samoans haye a juvenile scarecrow called 
“Sina, the Eye-Eater.” The harassed parent would say, 
“Don’t make such a noise; Sina the EKye-Eater will 
come to pick out your eyes.” Chemosit is a Nandi 
devil, half man, half bird, with a red mouth that shines 
at night like a lamp. He catches children who are 
foolish enough to wander away from home lured by 
his night song. Among the Fors, a Central African tribe, 
girls meddling with the milk-pots or stealing milk be- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 99 


hind their mothers’ backs are punished with epilepsy 
by a zitian, a spirit-servant of the great mountain god. 
In the Carolines, the ancestral spirits put an unending 
curse upon the unfilial. Ainu women teach their 
daughters that were they to marry without being prop- 
erly tattooed, after death the demons will do all the 
tattooing with very large knives and at one sitting. 

There are also moral stories for the young. A tribe 
in Queensland has a tale about two boys who were left 
alone in camp with strict orders not to leave it until the 
elders returned. The boys, tiring of the place, went 
down to the sea. Then the Great Serpent of the Rain- 
bow came out of the ocean, caught the boys and turned 
them into rocks that now stand between two points. 
“Here you see,” the old Blackfellow used to say to the 
boys, “the result of not paying attention to what you are 
told by your elders.” ® 

These sayings and tales are all serviceable after their 
fashion, and help to show that there is an ideal line of 
conduct laid out for youth by parents, even among 
savages. A far more intensive sort of education, however, 
is found later in the life of the child. 


ADOLESCENCE 


The second great crisis comes at the time of puberty, 
and the initiation into the tribe. These may coincide, 
as Webster thinks, or, as Van Gennep remarks, there may 
be often a difference between physiological adolescence 
and social adolescence. He gives an illustration of this: 
Roman girls are legally nubile at twelve years of age, 
but physiologically nubile at fourteen or fifteen. In 
Paris the legal age of marriage is sixteen and a half 


years, whereas the physiological puberty comes at four- 


100 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


teen years and four months. In the one case the legal 
age of marriage is two or three years before puberty, 
and in the other more than two years after this period. 
There seems little doubt that physiological puberty does 
not necessarily mean the same thing as social puberty, 
and it may perhaps be incorrect to consider initiation 
ceremonies making the extrance of youth into society as 
puberty rites. Nevertheless, it is practically impossible 
to separate the acts undertaken at adolescence from 
those taking place at the boys’ initiation into the tribe 
as a full-fledged member, and no attempt will be made 
to do so. 

It should be understood clearly that puberty rites and 
initiation may be a formal procedure, the concern of the 
tribe as a whole, and the entire social structure of tribal 
society may be built around ‘these ceremonies, ag_in 
Australia; or that puberty rites and initiation may be 
‘more an affair of the family or clan, as among several 
tribes in Northern America. Wirtkewrors as Lowie 
notes, adolescent ceremonies for men are remarkable for 
their rarity among the American Indians, whereas girls’ 
puberty festivals are fairly common. This presence of 
rites for girls and its comparative absence for boys shows 
again the danger of making general statements regard- 
ing any definite practice covering the whole world and 
appearing at a definite stage in the development of 
society. 

Several writers have tried to show that the funda- 
mental organization of primitive society is based upon 
age groups,—the boys, the bachelors, and the married 
men,—and a definite segregation of these three male 
divisions is always attempted. This does not hold true 
in all cases. 


Social Origins and Social Continuties 101 


The physiological changes at puberty are matters of 
concern. The provisions made to separate the sexes are 
often elaborate. With girls, the time of adolescence can 
be definitely determined, and the fear_of contamination 
is present in much the same way as in the case of child- 
birth. Much has been made of the fear of the evil effects 
of blood in general, and more particularly of the blood of 
women. Seclusion is often insisted upon, not only at 
puberty, but at definite intervals throughout the life of 
women. Among the Parsee to this day a room is pro- 
vided for the monthly seclusion of women. It has no 
comforts, and from it neither sun, moon, stars, fire, 
water, sacred implements, nor any human being can be 
seen. Among some of the California tribes, the girl at 
the beginning of maturity is considered dangerous to the 
vegetation and the food supply. When she goes abroad 
she has her head covered with a blanket or a basket, a 
visor of feathers over her eyes, or her head bowed with 
her hair hanging down in front. There is sometimes an 
analogy shown in the puberty rites of girls between the 
fructification of the crops and human fruitfulness. 

With the boys the period of adolescence is not so 
exactly determined, and there is no special care taken 
to protect men, at least, from their society. While the 
Arunta boys are being painted, as a part of their puberty 
rites, they are informed that this helps their growth, “‘and 
they are also told by tribal fathers and elder brothers that 
in future they must not play with the women or girls, 
nor must they camp with them as they have hitherto 
done, but henceforth they must go to the camp of the 
men... . Up to this time they have been accustomed 
to go out with the women as they searched for vegetable 
food and the smaller animals such as lizards and rats; 


102 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


now they begin to accompany the men in their search 
for larger game, and begin also to look forward to the 
time when they will become fully initiated and admitted 
to all secrets of the tribe, which are as yet kept hidden 
from them.”*7 Modern psychology has shown us the 
importance of this period in the lives both of boys and of 
girls. 

At adolescence the boys pass from the control-of their 
mothers and the society of women into the hands of 
their fathers and the associations of men. The sur- 
render of the boys by their mothers is often shown 
dramatically. Infancy, as Van Gennep records, is 
frequently regarded as a sort of positive quality, like 
illness, and this is pushed aside and the boy enters a 
new door. The awaking of a new power in youth is 
considered by some tribes as a new birth, the dawning 
of a new nature. Up to this time he has been a part of 
his parents’ personalities, now he is an individual. 
Among many peoples we find that every serious event in 
the physical life is equivalent to death followed by resur- 
rection. There is often a rite simulating death followed 
by the birth of the adolescent youth. As Webster shows, 
it is possible in some cases that the neophytes are really 
hypnotized into believing that they have died and come 
to life as other creatures. This change of status may be 
evidenced by some alteration of dress, of decoration: 
the hair is cut or dressed in a new way, ornaments are 
worn for the first time, or the face is painted. 

Various bodily mutilations are often practiced. Cir- 
cumcision is perhaps the most widespread of these cus- 
toms. In ancient times it was found in many places, 
including Egypt, Palestine, and Persia. Among present 
peoples it occurs sporadically over the whole world. 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 103 


Circumcised and uncircumcised tribes often live in the 
same neighborhood. There have been countless expla- 
nations given for this practice, but no single one 
seems to satisfy all the varied conditions surrounding 
this mutilation. There is reason to think that we have 
a similar custom arrived at from several distinct mo- 
tives. There does not seem to be much evidence for 
regarding its practice as due to any physiological pur- 
pose. It may take place directly after birth, as among 
the Jews, or be postponed until long after adolescence. 
In a few instances it may occur after marriage or after 
a certain number of children are born. It may even be 
one of the rites preliminary to becoming a priest or a 
soldier. In general it comes at puberty, and seems 
to be closely associated with other visible changes in 
the appearance of the youth who is entering manhood. 
It is often found in connection with other mutilations of 
the sexual organs. Among many peoples in Africa, in 
certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago, and in South 
America, the girls also undergo a sort of circumcision 
which is usually regarded as a preliminary to marriage. 
The ritual surrounding these rites is often very elaborate, 
and special kinds of instruments are sometimes required. 

In addition to circumcision there are other mutilations 
of the body. Tattooing and scarification, the boring of 
the ear, the nose, or the lips for the insertion oi orna- 
ments, are only a few. Knocking out one or more teeth 
is a common practice at puberty, among several of the 
Australian tribes as well as among some African peoples. 
The teeth knocked out are often preserved with the 
greatest care. 

The reason for these practices may be two-fold,— 
an indication to all mankind that the novice has passed 


104 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


from boyhood to manhood, or that the girl has arrived 
at the age of nubility; and, secondly, these mutilations 
prove that the youth has been able to withstand suffering. 

The ordeal is an important feature of many of these” 
ceremonies. Fright is often a necessary part of the rite, 
and most ingenious means are taken to play upon the 
feelings of the novices; hideous masks adorn the figures 
of the men portraying the gods. Beatings and whippings 
are frequent. It is considered the very worst form to 
shirk these ordeals, or to evince the least trace of 
cowardice. “I remember,” writes Howitt, regarding an 
Australian tribe, “one young lad of about twelve, who 
showed no more sense of anything going on around him 
than if he had been a bronze statue, and yet, as he 
afterwards said, he felt quite sure several times that he 
was about to be killed.” 8 Sometimes, when the boys 
take leave of their mothers and sisters to undergo the 
rites, they firmly believe that they will never see their 
family again. 

These puberty ceremonies often have great peda- 
gogical functions. As tests of endurance they teach the 
male youth the necessity of suffering hardships and pri- 
vations without complaint. Tabus sometimes serve as 
lessons in temperance, sexually and gastronomically 
considered. Strict obedience to the older men is one 
of the prime requisites in these rites. The codes of 
morality, the laws regulating conduct in general, and 
more especially those relating to marriage, tabus, sacred 
mysteries, songs, and ritual, are all a part of the in- 
struction. There is little doubt that the puberty rites 
serve. very important educational and social ends: The 
mere fact of the absolute subjection of youth to super- 
natural as well as mundane authority is of the great- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 105 


est value. Webster very pertinently comments upon 
“the long fasts, the deprivation of sleep, the constant 
excitement of the new and unexpected, the nervous re- 
action under long-continued torments, result in a con- 
dition of extreme sensitiveness—hyperesthesia—which is 
certainly favorable to the reception of impressions that 
will be indelible.” 

Self-control was amusingly taught in the Dukduk cere- 
mony of New Pomerania. The boy was made to live 
in a secluded hut in the forest, and was allowed to eat 
anything he wished, but with the injunction that what- 
ever he ate during this period would remain tabu for him 
during the remainder of his life. 

The most elaborate initiation and puberty ceremonies 
are probably to be found in Australia. Howitt gives a 
very full account of one of these rités; ‘witnessed by him 
in southeastern Australia, which will be greatly 
abridged. 9 It begins by the men commanding silence 
among the women and children as they are huddled 
together in a group surrounded by the men. The boys 
ready for initiation are drawn out from the group, and 
skin rugs and blankets are thrown over the women, so 
that they cannot be seen and are unable to see anything 
which is going on. The Kabos are mentors, whose duty 
it is to take charge of the boys, never leaving them 
alone and acting as advisers, instructors, and monitors. 

After the boys have been stripped naked, and each 
has a blanket placed like a cone over his head, with the 
face appearing at the top, the procession of men, Kabos, 
and novices start up the hill towards the mountains. 
On the way the Kabos tell the boys they must never 
show any sign of fear or surprise, nor should they 
by word or deed show that they are conscious of what is 


106 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


going on around them. Nothing, however, must escape 
their attention, and everything to which yah is attached 
carries an exactly opposite significance to its apparent 
meaning. 

The ceremony consists of major and minor rites,— 
the intervals being filled with magical dances, amusing 
interludes, and buffoonery, all taking part except the 
Kabos. “If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mis- 
chief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in 
burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys 
on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would 
give a not inapt representation of what takes place. 
But there is a remarkable feature: that at the end of 
almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, im- 
moral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds ‘Yah/’— 
which negatives all that has been said and done.” 

At a halt in the procession, two old men sit down 
and begin to make “mud pies,” which they pat with 
childish manners and gestures. Other men come up and 
say to the boys, “Look at that! Look at those old men, 
when you get back to the camp, go and do like that, . 
and play with little children—Yah.” At another halt, 
some of the old men come out of the scrub with boughs 
held round their heads representing a herd of bullocks, 
and perform some absurd antics to make the boys laugh. 
But warned by their Kabos, they remain stolid. 

At a third halt, all the men rub themselves with pow- 
dered charcoal, making themselves almost unrecogniz- 
able. After more antics, the procession starts again. On 
the summit of the hill, the first magic dance takes place. 
Circles of men perform before the boys, and then they 
form part of the circle. One of the Gommeras, or medi- 
cine-men, darts into the center and executes the magic 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 107 


dance, sitting almost on his heels and hopping back- 
wards and forwards with a staring expression on his 
face. After apparent internal struggles, he produces 
something from his mouth, as if it had been brought 
from within his body. The great and deadly power of 
the Gommeras are explained to the boys. 

Following a further ascent, another stop is made and 
the men march before the boys, stooping and supported 
by a staff, as if they were old and infirm. After another 
magic dance, the men rush to the boys in great excite- 
ment and shout “Ngai!” meaning “Good!” and, at the 
same time, move their arms and hands as if passing some- 
thing from themselves to the boys. They, in turn, move 
their hands and arms as if pulling a rope towards them- 
selves. The purpose of all this is to fill the boys, 
saturate them, with the magic coming from the initiated 
and the medicine-men, so that “Daramulun will like 
them.” 

After various haltings they pass to a spot which is 
cleared for about twenty-five feet square. Along one side, 
pairs of holes are dug, about a foot in depth, in which the 
novices are to stand. A figure of Daramulun in relief 
is cut on a tree. Ten men then disguise themselves 
completely by means of strips of bark on their bodies 
and their heads, with their upper and lower lips reverted 
by cords tied around the head, showing their teeth and 
gums. These hideous creatures suddenly appear to the 
novices. The ten men then in turn perform on a special 
kind of drum placed before him, and masked figures 
rush to the novices and begin to dance. One of the 
Kabos kneels behind each boy, the boy sitting on his 
mentor’s knee, and another Kabo draws the boy’s head 
to his breast, with his hand over the boys’ eyes. The 


108 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


medicine-man appears, bearing in one hand a short 
wooden club and in the other a chisel-shaped piece of 
wood. He approaches each boy in turn, hands his im- 
plements to someone, and seizing the boys’ head applies 
one of his lower incisor teeth to the boys’ left upper 
incisor, pressing it upwards. Then he strikes a blow with 
his chisel on the tooth, and keeps on striking until the 
tooth falls out. The boy is told on no account to spit out 
the blood, but to swallow it, otherwise the wound will not 
heal. The first boy in the rite described by Howitt 
showed stoical indifference, but the second boy made a 
great outcry at two attempts on the tooth. The old 
men now said that the boy had been too much with the 
women, thereby causing his tooth to be so firmly fixed. 
It took thirteen blows to release the tooth. 

Admonitions regarding the power of the god Daramu- 
lun being given, the boys are invested with the men’s 
belt. Dances follow for the remainder of the night, some 
to amuse, some to illustrate the magical powers of the 
medicine-men, and others to enforce tribal morality or 
to perpetuate tribal legends. Finally the rite is over, 
and now the boys have to live by themselves in the 
bush, on such food as they can catch and such as is 
lawful for them to eat. The medicine-men will not 
consent to the boys taking their places in the tribal 
communities and marrying, until they are satisfied as to 
their conduct. In some cases this period of bush life 
is of several months’ duration, and, in one case mentioned, 
marriage was not allowed until after several years had 
elapsed. 

There is little comment needed regarding this rite,— 
the terrific ordeal and the indelible impression it must 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 109 


make upon the novices, riveting the influence and power 
of the old men. 

The institution called the men’s-house is found among 
a large number of primitive tribes scattered over a great 
part of the world, and several writers have assumed that 
its development is due primarily to the desire to separate 
the sexes from the time of puberty onward. This is 
indeed true in some cases. In Melanesia, for example, 
the boys on arriving at manhood take up their residence 
in the men’s-house. This is the bachelor headquarters, 
and entrance is, of course, denied to women. The men’s- 
house, however, may be a gathering-place not only for 
the unmarried youth but for all the men in the com- 
munity, and the development of this institution cannot 
always be traced back to rites centering around adoles- 
cence. Some tribes limit membership in the men’s-house 
to the elders. 

A characteristic of some of the American tribes is the 
guardian spirit, or personal totem. On this phenomenon, 
as on all others, it is impossible to make general state- 
ments. There is often a confusion between the personal 
totem, which is s usually not inherited, and the clan totem 
eee by all members of the clan. The latter type of 
totem does not concern us here. 

The personal totem, or guardian spirit, is generally 
obtained _at the time of adolescence. There are many 
exceptions to this rule, however, especially when the 
time of initiation does not correspond with the time of 
puberty. This totem is sometimes obtained at birth. 
In Samoa, when a child is expected, the relatives begin 
to draw upon the ground one after another figures of 
animals. The one that remains at the moment the child 
is born becomes his special property. 


110 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


This guardian spirit is a protector of the young man 
just starting out on his journey through life. Between 
him and the spirit there is a most intimate relationship. 
The guardian may be an animal, a plant, some natural 
object such asa cloud, or even ‘Something “inanimate. 
Peace may sometimes be a totem, and in that case the 
youth is a pacifist for life, no matter how many wars 
are raging around him. Bi North America this totem 
is usually obtained as the result of fasting and contem- 
plation. 

Among the Omaha Indians, the mind of the adolescent 
boys was said to have Ui cuornd white,” and a compli- 
cated rite took place at this time.° This was called 
“to stand sleeping,” signifying that the novice was ob- 
livious of the world around him and conscious only of 
what went on within himself. After certain prelimi- 
hary prayers, the boy set out for some quiet place to 
fast for four days and nights. For four days he rested, 
ate very little, and spoke infrequently. During this time 
he was supposed to have a dream or vision. This usually 
took the form of some animal or bird. It might, however, 
be some inanimate object, some quality. On his return, 
he sought out the individual in the tribe who had had a 
similar dream, and confided to him his secret. It then 
became necessary for the boy to set out and find the 
animal or the bird seen in the dream, kill it, and preserve 
a part or a whole of the body. This trophy became the 
visible sign of his dream, and was regarded as his most 
precious possession. He could wear it on his scalp-lock, 
or elsewhere on his person, during dances or when going 
to war. When the dream was of something unobtainable, 
a symbolic representation was made. Some visions were 
better than others,—the hawk was considered favorable, 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 111 


as it helped to success in war. Bears were “not so good,” 
as they were clumsy and slow-moving. Snakes were 
“not good.” To dream of the moon was considered the 
greatest misfortune. The moon would appear to the 
youth carrying in one hand the bow and arrow, the 
symbol of the male sex, and in the other the burden- 
strap used by the women. It would try to force the 
burden strap into the boy’s hands. If the youth in his 
dream took the bow and arrow, all was well and he es- 
caped the evil effects of the dream. If, on the other hand, 
he was forced to take the strap, he forfeited his manhood 
and became like a woman. He was then obliged for the 
remainder of his life to speak and dress like women, 
and to carry on their occupations. “It is said that there 
have been those who, having dreamed of the moon, and 
having had the burden strap forced on them, have 
tried to conceal this ill luck for a time, but that few have 
succeeded.” Suicide was the only means of escape. 

There were certain tabus often required of the boy 
in relation to his totem. It has been noted that among 
the Omahas the boy killed his guardian spirit and wore 
a part of the body,—a claw, perhaps,—on his person. 
It_is usual to forbid a person to eat any part of his 
totemic animal. If a dangerous wild animal is the 
totem, a prayer of apology is sometimes offered before 
killing it. The totems vary in power, and some are far 
more desirable than others. 

There seems to be some idea of the assimilation of the 
character of the animal totem to that of the person 
who has this animal for his guardian. If the deer is his 
totem, and, when hard pressed, he prays to the deer, 
he is sess fleetness. If he dreams of the coyote, he 
has the cunning of this animal, An eagle, with great 


112 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


range of sight, can bestow upon the man who has this 
bird as his guardian the gift of foretelling the future. 
Thunder gives the ability to control the elements, and 
_ the authority to conduct certain religious rites. Among 


' the Omahas, no one can choose his personal totem, 


but it is the general belief of the people that the power- 
ful animals and agencies are apt to be drawn toward 
those who possess natural gifts of mind and strength of 
will. 

There is some question regarding the worship of the 
totem. This feeling | may be entirely | absent and re- 
placed by respect and regard as for a brother. ‘This 
is a sort of “imaginary brotherhood” set. up between an 
individual and some object of his environment. 

We often find a stratification of society along lines 
of the guardian spirits. It is not unnatural for those 
who have had the same vision to regard themselves as 
related. This is one cause, but only one, for the forma- 
tion of the secret society, which will be discussed later. 
There is no doubt that these puberty rites furnish a very 
real social bond among those who are initiated at the 
same time, or have the same personal totem. There is 
almost a “caste feeling” developed as the result of these 
ceremonies. When it is remembered that in some cases 
the entire religious life of a tribe centers in these ob- 
servances at puberty, one realizes the important part 
they play. They are often the occasion for great as- 
semblies of people from far and near, who come together 
perhaps only once during the year, and solely for the 
purpose of witnessing these rites. 

The ceremonies at adolescence in primitive society 
have analogies among more developed peoples. The 
Eleusinian mysteries of the Greeks present some strik- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 113 


ing parallels. The training of the Spartan youth might 
also be considered. In the Catholic Church, confirma- 
tion is preceded by a “retreat,” confession, self-sacri- 
fice, and fasting, and the ceremony itself is full of pomp. 
Synods have declared it must “be celebrated with all 
possible solemnity.” The sensitiveness of the children 
at this time is great. The veils, candles, and the splen- 
dor of the altar and the vestments, together with the 
music, make a most impressive setting for the rite it- 
self. Souvenirs and symbolic presents follow. Psycho- 
logically, at least, the puberty rites and confirmation 
belong in somewhat the same category. 

Several have pointed out the connection that seems 
to exist between adolescence and conversion in the Pur- 
itanical sense,—a change of life and a new birth. The 
average age of “getting religion” and of sexual maturity 
‘Beem ‘to coincide. ~ 

“Marriage will be passed over as a crisis in life, as 
this will be taken up in the next chapter. 


DEATH 


The final crisis is death. The savage often has myths 
accounting for this very real enemy. It may be said in 
general that death is usually something introduced into 
a world of happiness by some act of man or of beast,— 
an opening of Pandora’s box, as it were. 

Among the Melanesians of the New Hebrides, it was 
believed that at first men never died, but when they 
were old they cast their skins like snakes and came out 
with youth revived. Once a woman, growing old, went 
to a stream to change her skin. She threw her old skin 
into the water; as it floated down, it caught against a 
stick. Then she went home, where she had left her child. 


114 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


The child refused to recognize her, crying that its mother 
was an old woman, not like this young stranger, and to 
pacify the child she went after her old skin, put it on, 
and from that day onward mankind ceased to cast their 
skins and died." 

There are often important differences between physio- 
logical facts and sociological theories. A child, as we 
have already seen, may not be considered sociologically 
born until he has been introduced as a member of his 
tribe; he may not be sociologically adolescent until he 
has passed through certain rites; sociological fatherhood 
may differ from actual fatherhood; or a mere boy may 
be sociologically married to a very young girl, as in 
- India, whereas physiological marriage is long delayed. 
In i same way, death sociologically considered and 
physical death may not coincide. Among the Melane- 
sians, the term mate is used for a dead person, but also 
for the aged and for one seriously ill and likely to die. 
Rivers points out that in the olden times there is little 
doubt that the seriously ill and the aged were actually 
put to death. At the present time the aged and those 
very sick are dead for all social purposes. There is a 
confusion of categories from our point of view, but this 
is not so from the primitive standpoint.!? 

Savages without exception believe in a human soul 
that leaves the body. temporarily in sleep ‘and more or 
less permanently at death. This idea is closely associ- 
ated with the belief that there are souls or spirits in 
trees and animals, as well as in inanimate objects. Man’s 
attempt to establish communication with these different 
kinds of souls or spirits is summed up in the word wor- 
ship:—prayer, divination, and sacrifice. His explana- 
tions regarding these spirits are to be found in his myth- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 115 


ology. Religion illustrates better than any other phase 
of life the continuity of ideas existing between the savage 
and civilized man. 

“This belief in a soul does not necessarily mean a belief 


in immortality. The idea of life after death is universal | 


as I have said, but this soul may be injured and even die 
if care is not taken to protect it. 

“The first idea of Religion,’ wrote Hume, “arose not 
from a contemplation of the works of Nature, but from 
a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the 
incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human 
mind.” Now the most important event in primitive life 
is death. Death, except possibly upon the field of battle, 
is never thought to be a natural phenomenon. A tree 
falls and kills a man, lightning strikes and works 
destruction, a canoe is upset in the surf and its occupants 
drown; all these events prove the existence of evil spirits. 
Man sees death all around him,—in plants, in animals, 
as well as among his fellows, and it is assumed almost 
without exception that it is the result of a successful 
battle waged on the living by the malignant spirits of 
destruction. It has often been noted that fear is prob- 
ably the basis of religion. Some of the precautions 
taken to protect the individual at birth have already 
been recorded, and these efforts are redoubled at the time 
of illness and death. The terror aroused by sickness and 
death is one of the greatest stimuli for religious action. 

The belief in a soul in man is easily proved to his own 
satisfaction by the phenomena of sleep and dreaming, 
swooning, hallucinations, intoxication, and others. A 
spirit leaves his body during these states and carries on 
an individual existence. Another takes possession. of his 
body and brings ‘him new sensations. The belief is 


DTT pr 


oe 


116 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


reasonable. What are the human shapes appearing in 
his dreams and visions if they are not spirits? The 
dream is something very real to the savage. Some 
peoples fail entirely to discriminate between their expe- 
riences in real life and what they dream. Sir Everard im 
Thurn, in an account of the Indians of Guiana, writes, 
“One morning when it was important to me to get away 
from camp on the Essequibo River, at which I had been 
detained for some days by the illness of some of my 
Indian companions, I found that one of the invalids, a 
young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged 
against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, 
with great want of consideration for his weak health, I 
had taken him out during the night and had made him 
haul the canoes up a series of difficult cataracts. Nothing 
could persuade him that this was but a dream . . . More 
than once the men declared in the morning that some 
absent man, whom they named, had come during the 
night, and had beaten or otherwise maltreated them; and 
they insisted on much rubbing of the bruised parts of 
their bodies”’—all a dream.13 

The concept of the soul is seen in the term “the breath 
of life.’ In very many different languages the same 
word is used to mean either breath or life. The soul 
may also be seen in the reflection in the water or in a 
mirror. The fear of breaking a mirror and the custom 
of turning a mirror face to the wall on a death in the 
family may both go back to this concept of the soul as 
a reflection. The spirit may also be manifested in the 
pulse, the echo, and the name. The shadow may be the 
soul. It is considered a very bad practice to bury the 
dead at noonday, when the shadow is shortest. A sick 
man may even be thought to lose a part of his shadow. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 117 


“May your shadow never grow less” is a modern version 
of the same idea. 

For safe-keeping a Corot of the soul may be placed 
outside the body. Here we have the “‘life-token” theme 
in folk-lore; the actual life of a person being bound up 
in something hidden away or in a tree or some other 
living thing. ‘The transmigration of souls is another 
common ideaof primitive man. The belief that the 
body is “possessed” by an extraneous spirit is seen in 
the words catalepsy, a seizing of the body by some 
demon; ecstasy, a displacement of the original soul by 
another; and inspiration, a breathing into the body by a 
spirit. Dante speaks with the greatest sarcasm of the 
souls of his contemporaries which he meets in Hell, 
although their bodies, inhabited by devils, are still on 
earth. A god may even taken possession of the body, 
as seen in the word enthusiasm. The Thracian Dionysos 
brought the idea to Greece that a man through physical 
intoxication—later, through spiritual ecstasy—could pass 
from the human to the divine. 

Sickness is.seldom considered a natural phenomenon. 
It_is always sent by. an_evil. spirit. Mental diseases 
prove conclusively that the body is ‘‘possessed.” There 
seems to be a disinclination even among some civilized 
peoples to regard sickness as natural. The witchcraft 
delusion in Europe and America illustrates this point. 
Early medicine was founded upon the fact that illness 
was caused by demons, and magic was called in to drive 
them out. This belief would come within the province 
of psychotherapy at the present time. Many savage 
practices form a “therapeutic armamentarium” against 
these evil spirits who scatter disease and death. 

A line of reasoning similar to that of the savage is 


118 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


seen in the belief that illness is sent by God as a punish- 
ment. Edmund Gosse, writing of his father in his book 
Father and Son, says: “He retained the singular super- 
stition, amazing in a man of scientific knowledge and 
long human experience, that all pains and ailments were 
directly sent by the Lord in chastisement for some defi- 
nite fault, and not in relation to any physical cause. 
The result was sometimes quite startling, and in partic- 
ular I recollect that my step-mother and I exchanged 
impressions of astonishment at my Father’s action when 
Mrs. Goodyer, who was one of the ‘Saints’ and the wife 
of a young journeyman cobbler, broke her leg. My 
Father, puzzled for an instant as to the meaning of this 
accident, since Mrs. Goodyer was the gentlest and most 
inoffensive of our church members, decided that it must 
be because she had made an idol of her husband, and he 
reduced the poor things to tears by standing at her bed- 
side and imploring the Holy Spirit to bring this sin home 
to her conscience.” 

Death means a passage into the final stage of exist- 
ence, just as the adolescent rites mark progress from 
childhood to manhood. The continuity of the souls of the 
living and of the dead is a very close one. The “pres- 
ence” of the departed is a very real thing. Dreams, 
noises, and other strange happenings all prove it. “Lay- 
ing the ghost” is always necessary. No obligation is 
more binding than that proper respect be paid to the 
dead. | hike 

This regard for the deceased is founded perhaps more 
on fear than on love, although both are usually pres- 
ent, and it is not always possible to distinguish between 
the two ideas. Let us consider, first, a few of the customs 
centering around fear of the dead kindred. Propitiation. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 119 


is the keynote of all savage burial rites. However well- 
disposed a person may be in life, his presence is not 
desired after death. The souls of the dead cannot strictly 
be said at first to be “departed spirits,’ as they usually 
prefer to linger about the place of death until means are 
taken to dislodge them. It is not well to have them 
tarry near the habitation; so provision is often taken to 
have death occur away from the dwelling. People as 
far apart as the Eskimo and the Maori of New Zealand 
carry those whom they fear are to die away irom the 
house, often to a special dwelling, so that there death 
may take place and the souls of the deceased will not 
injure those in the regular habitation. When this 
removal of the dying is not carried out, and the person 
passes away in his own house, the house may be deserted 
or even destroyed. When a great chief dies in Africa, 
sometimes a whole village is deserted. There is little 
doubt that the custom of closing the room in which death 
has occurred is to be associated with the same idea. The 
room is often thoroughly cleaned and renovated before it 
is again occupied. 

Another set of practices attempts to hasten the depar- 
ture of the soul to its last resting place. The Algonkian 
beat the walls of the death chamber; the Chinese knock 
the floor with a hammer; the German peasant waves 
towels about the room; and, in ancient Rome, the ghost 
was swept out of the house by the heir.'4 

In the journey to the grave, care is taken to prevent 
the soul from returning, and the house is barricaded 
against its reappearance. A knife may be hung over 
the door or an axe laid on the threshold. The ghost can 
only return by the same route which has been taken; 
much ingenuity is therefore seen in preventing its second 


120 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


appearance. The eyes may be closed or covered by a 
mask, burial may be by night, or the body may be carried 
out of the house through a hole in the roof or by the 
chimney. Frazer gives credit for this device to the 
Greenlanders, Hottentots, some American. tribes, Hindus, 
Tibetans, Chinese, and the Fijians. The same idea may 
be shown in Rome where a dead Pope is carried out 
of St. Peter’s through the central doorway, which is 
used only for this purpose. The soul may be prevented 
from returning from the burial place by barring it by 
fire or by water. Perhaps the mourners leap over a fire, 
or holy water may be sprinkled after the burial proces- 
sion. 

Further precautions are often taken at the grave itself. 
The course of a river was temporarily changed so that 
Alaric, the King of the Goths, could be buried in the bed 
of the stream. A high fence is placed around the grave 
or stones are piled upon it. The body may be mutilated: 
the Australian cuts off the right thumb of a dead enemy 
so that his spirit cannot use a spear. 

From the time of the Upper Paleolithic period onward 
a ceremonial disposal of the dead has been a universal 
custom. Inhumation is the most common practice. The 
souls of the unburied wander in everlasting torment. 
This belief was especially prominent in classical times. 
Pausanius speaks of the conduct of Lysander as repre- 
hensible in not burying the bodies of Philocles and the 
four thousand slain by his armies, and adds that the 
Athenians did as much for the Medes after Marathon, 
and even Xerxes for the Lacedemonians after Thermo- 
pyle. Herodotus tells of the Egyptian law which per- 
mitted a man to give his father’s body in pledge, with 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 121 


the proviso that, if he failed to repay the loan, neither 
he nor any of his kin could be buried at all. 

The position of the body in the grave is of some con- 
cern. It may face the setting sun. Often the body is 
flexed, with the knees bent and touching the breast. A 
common explanation offered for this is that the dead go 
back to their mother-earth in the same position as that 
of the embryo in the human mother. Myths are often 
useful in explaining burial customs. Among the Hopi 
the hands of the dead clasp a stick which projects from 
the grave. By means of this the soul escapes to the 
land of the spirits just as the people originally ascended 
from beneath this earth to the present world by means 
of a ladder. 

The bodies of the dead are often deposited temporarily 
or even exposed to the creatures of the field until all the 
flesh has disappeared, and then a permanent and cere- 
monial burial of the bones is made. 

In case the body is not recovered on the field of battle 
or is lost at sea, burial by effigy is necessary. This 
custom is found in Greece, Italy, India, China, Samoa, 
and Mexico. Sometimes this burial is premature and 
the supposed dead returns. Sociologically he is dead, as 
his effigy has been buried; physiologically he is alive and 
well. Hence, the victim must be born again; he must 
enter the house in the same way as his effigy has left it; 
and, in some cases, he is considered a child and must go 
through the puberty rites in order to regain the status of 
manhood. Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, No. D, 
describes much the same custom. A man reported 
drowned in a naval engagement, returned and found the 
door of his house shut, and he was unable to open it. 
He was thus forced to sleep before his house. During 


122 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


the night he had a vision which told him that he should 
enter by means of the roof. He did this, and became 
fortunate ever after, living to be a very aged man. 
Hereafter the custom was always observed under similar 
circumstances. Plutarch adds that this practice seems 
to have been derived from the Greeks. 

The whole body may be preserved artificially by 
embalming, or the head alone may be kept. There is 
no end to the methods used in connection with the dead. 
Cremation came into practice in the Bronze Age in 
Europe and it is seldom absent in any great part of the 
world. It is often found along with inhumation. It 
may be those high in authority who are cremated and 
the common people buried; sometimes it is the reverse. 
The ceremonial deposition of the ashes in an urn or vase 
is common. 

After this very cursory review of some of the most 
frequent forms of burial, let us note a few of the customs 
based more specifically upon the love of the dead 
kindred. Various tabus are necessary to prevent the 
soul from injuring itself. The Chinese use no knives 
for fear the soul might be cut; doors are closed carefully, 
lest the soul might be pinched; bowls of water are emptied 
so that it may not be drowned. A fast is sometimes 
made for fear of eating the spirit of the dead. 

Prehistoric archeology would be a barren field of 
research were it not for the universal practice of placing 
objects in graves. The soul needs food and drink <3 well 
as clothing. It may indeed desire its former wife or 
Wives, its slaves, or even its horse. Grave pottery forms 
the bulk of the collections in any archeological museum. 
In Peru, the playthings of the child and the weaving 
utensils of the women are buried with them. Sometimes 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 123 


there is the idea that the soul returns to occupy the body, 
and thus it needs all kinds of property ready at hand. 
The destruction of objects by burning in the funeral pyre 
is another way to aid the souls of the dead. Pottery 
vessels are sometimes “killed” by breaking or knocking 
a hole in the bottom, making them no longer useful for 
the living but still acceptable to the spirits of the dead. 

The degradation of sacrifice is not uncommon, a sub- 
stitution of an imitation for the real object. The funeral 
rites of the Chinese illustrate this point very clearly; 
paper puppets to guard the grave; paper money to scatter 
for the benefit of the souls who have left no sons; and 
many others. 

Mourning customs are an important feature of savage 
life. Durkheim has an interesting theory on mourning, 
which is built on a superstructure of crowd psychology: 
the coercion of the members of the family. “Not only 
do the relatives, who are affected the most directly, bring 
their personal sorrow to the assembly, but the society 
exercises a moral pressure over its members, to put their 
sentiments in harmony with the situation. To allow 
them to remain indifferent to the blow which has fallen 
upon it and diminished it, would be equivalent to pro- 
claiming that it does not hold the place in their hearts 
which is due it; it would be denying itself. A family 
which allows one of its members to die without being 
wept for shows by that very act that it lacks moral unity 
and cohesion; it abdicates; it renounces its existence. . 
When the Christian, during the ceremonies commemorat- 
ing the Passion, and the Jew, in the anniversary of the 
fall of Jerusalem, fast and mortify themselves, it is not 
in giving way to a sadness which they feel sponta- 
neously.” 16 


124 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


This theory seems to satisfy the facts concerning a 
Catholic wake and other similar practices, but it does 
not take into account the idea of the fear of the soul of 
the deceased which seems to be fundamental in any 
mourning rite of the savage. Several have pointed out 
that mourning customs are primarily attempts to dis- 
guise the living from the dead. We have already seen 
how little acumen is allowed to ghosts, how easily they 
can be imposed upon and thwarted. So it is, evidently, 
with their return to harass the living. They can be com- - 
pletely foiled by a simple disguise. Mourning customs 
are often the reverse of those of ordinary life; a people 
who paint their bodies leave it off; the hair is allowed 
to grow long; the color and the cut of the clothing are 
changed. The name of the dead is made a tabu. Puri- 
fication rites are sometimes performed and the living 
thus put on a “spiritual armor” against the souls of the 
dead. 

The “other world” may have a very definite location, 
across a desert, beyond a range of mountains, or towards 
the setting sun. Again, there may be a vagueness 
regarding its whereabouts. The journey there is curi- — 
ously alike over a great part of the aboriginal world. 
The road is difficult and help is required. Combats are 
sometimes necessary. The dog, the universal possession 
and a friend of man since very early times, is often 
needed as an aid to the soul in overcoming the dangers 
of the journey. 

This world where the ghosts of the departed take up 
their residence has very much the same character as the 
world of the living. Dreams prove to the savage that a 
chief in this world is carrying on his vocation in the next; 
& warrior here is a warrior there. The “happy hunting- 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 125 


ground” presents conditions perhaps slightly ameliorated 
from those of the living; there may be an abundance of 
game and plenty of water for the crops. The caste idea 
is sometimes found, where certain classes of the popula- 
tion are believed to be entitled to some delights not 
shared by others. Good hunters and good warriors may 
receive special blessings on their death. The character 
of the death may determine the place of the future 
abode. In Mexico the souls of those who die in child- 
birth, those killed by lightning or are drowned, are 
privileged to go to a special abiding place that is far 
more agreeable than that which receives the souls of 
those dying in other ways. ‘The ethical feature of retri- 
bution, a paradise for the good and punishment for the 
wicked, is totally lacking among savages who have not 
come in contact with the white man. 

This other world is not only peopled by the ghosts of } 
the dead but it is the abode of the spirits of plants and. 
of animals as well as the dwelling place of the gods. 
These may represent the powers of nature. Spencer 
believed that the evolution of the gods in a large sense 
can be traced to the worship of a human soul. This 
theory cannot account for the general belief of a savage 
people in the greater gods. 

Ancestor worship is a cult in and of itself, and is some- 
thing quite different from the universal doctrine of 
human souls. The worship of ancestors is found in com- 
paratively few places, and these are all regions of high 
cultures, as Greece and Rome, China and India. In some 
parts of Polynesia the worship of ancestors may also be 
considered to be a cult in itself. In all these regions 
there is a certain very close connection between the 
definite group of the dead on the one hand and the living 


126 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


on the other. The entire welfare of the dead depends 
upon having on earth descendants, usually a son. 


These crises of life which we have been considering 
are all represented to some extent among civilized 
peoples. Baptism is the purification of the newly born 
babe; the “churching of women” makes them fit to 
reassume their place in society; confirmation is to some 
extent comparable with the rites of puberty. The train- 
ing for knighthood in feudal times, with its vigils and 
its ordeals, is certainly somewhat similar to the rites of 
the savage at adolescence. The Church again appears 
at death. However free from religious dogma one may 
have been during his lifetime—he may never have been 
baptised or confirmed, he may even have been married 
by a civil rite—at the end, at least, the future of his soul 


becomes a matter of concern and he is buried by the 
Church. 


CHAPTER IV 
MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 


In the examination of the crises in the life of the 
savage and the passage from one state to another, nothing 
was said regarding marriage and the family. They 
belong to other categories; the family is more or less a 
biological unit, whereas the institution of marriage in 
early society is perhaps more economic than anything 
else. Marriage regulates what might be called the legal 
association of the sexes, and it also assigns to every 
individual born “a definite place in that society by which 
his or her social relations to the rest of society are 
determined.”’ 


Tue Famity Anterior To Human Society 


The change from a life in the trees to a life on the 
ground marks the first important stage in the history of 
the family. A small arboreal primate gave way to man’s 
nearest ancestors, the giant primates, whose great 
increase in size and weight made life in the trees precari- 
ous. The greater bulk meant that more food was needed 
than could be found above the ground. The increase of 
weight made hanging from trees impossible and the tail 
became functionless. It was also no longer needed to 
maintain balance. When this proto-anthropoid descended 
to earth, two possible lines of evolution were open to 

127 


128 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


him. He could either walk on all fours as the baboon 
has done, or he could assume the erect attitude as has 
man and the anthropoid apes. ‘his change to a ter- 
restrial life and the erect posture brought about the 
specialization of hands and feet. The root of the former 
tail was depressed between the legs and now served 
another function, the support of the viscera. 

This transition to a life on the ground brought with it 
greater dangers from other animals, and the protective 
function of the male was stimulated to offset this added 
risk. These giant apes had a brain capacity far exceed- 
ing their progenitors. The increase in the size of the 
brain probably made necessary a rapid growth in uterine 
life. 

There was also a decrease in the number of offspring 
at birth. This may have been due to the increase in 
the size of the head in utero, the pelvis in general being 
too restricted for multiple offspring. The long period 
of development after birth brought about a prolongation 
of helpless infancy with the consequent need for parental 
care and, more especially, the necessity for paternal 
solicitude. This prolongation of infancy, coupled with 
the dangers of a terrestrial life meant co-operation 
between father and mother, and the family had begun 
to function. 

The anthropoid apes are not gregarious, and, in accord 
with the theory advanced here, real society does not 
arrive until the human stage is reached. There is still 
a large gap between the anthropoid apes and man, more 
especially in the size and weight of the brain. The 
cranial capacity of the gorilla, the largest of the apes, is 
only about one third that of man. Somewhere within 
the gap articulate speech came into use. With speech 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 129 


there came to man the possibility of discussion with his 
fellows. With the large brain there came the power of 
abstraction, of reasoning back from effect to cause, and 
of rectifying present conduct from past mistakes. His 
“learning” could be taught his offspring and thus be an 
advantage to the next generation. 

But we are concerned here only with the family, which 
is the real unit of society. It NOME out of the expression 
of one of the strongest of man’s impulses. It furnishes an 
instructive basis_for. altruism and social co-ordination, 
and brings about the first division of labor. The ques- 
tion of plurality of husbands or of wives merely relates 
to the form alone. Curiously enough the primary mean- 
ing of the word family referred only to the body of 
slaves and servants who labored for its maintenance. 
Mommsen uses the phrase “body of servants’ as the 
Latin significance of the term. 

The family stands apart as the one human institution 
where physical and physiological functions, and psycho- 
logical ones as well, clearly define the status of the two 
main members of the group, the father and the mother. 
Self-perpetuation and self-preservation are enlarged into 
family perpetuation and family preservation, and on 
these two “proto-positions” hang most of the elements 
found inherent in early society. The whole structure of 
the family is based upon these two lines of action. The 
expression and regulation of the sex impulse must there- 
fore receive attention. 


Sex In Earty Socriery 


A great deal has been written regarding the prominence 
of sex in the lower orders of mankind. Some would 
have us believe that the savage thinks of little else, and 


130 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


that the greater part of his time and of his ingenuity is 
turned towards sexual affairs. The lowest savages can 
plead “not guilty” to this charge. In the higher stages 
of primitive society there is often gross sexuality, but the 
perversions of sexual life are almost entirely absent in 
the lower types of savagery. The separation of the sexes 
by the institution of the men’s-house, the prevalence of 
curious marriage relationships, the character of many 
festivals and many folk-tales, the presence of certain 
kinds of worship; all these and many more are usually 
taken as examples of the prominence of sex among 
primitive peoples. The natural attitude in regard to sex 
matters and to various bodily functions is a characteristic 
of uncivilized society. Sex, it is true, does not stand 
apart as a thing to be hidden. Offenses against our ideas 
of modesty and decency do often occur, but it is certainly 
true that our standard of much which is modest and 
decent would not pass in primitive society. It can there- 
fore truthfully be said that, taken in the large, the savage 
is a clean-minded individual, in spite of transgressions 
against our code of right and wrong. This question of 
morality will be considered at length in another place. 

We may find among peoples of the very lowest cul- 
tures a family life not at all unlike that of an ideal 
American household. Many years ago, I lived in the 
center of the Guatemalan bush for three periods compris- 
ing almost a year in length. My hut was a shelter com- 
posed only of a roof. It touched the house of a family 
group consisting of a mother and three sons. The eldest 
had two wives; the second, one; and the third was 
unmarried. There were eight children, and all lived 
together in this single-room house, consisting, also, of 
only a roof, with no sides. During the entire time I 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 131 


was there I heard no word of censure, no wrangling of 
any kind. In spite of the complication of relationships— 
the multiple wives, the mother-in-law, and the unmar- 
ried son—I daily witnessed the life of one of the most 
ideal family groups I have ever seen. And these people 
belonged to a tribe which had never come into intimate 
contact with the Spanish-speaking people of the country. 
They were, fortunately for my purposes, uncivilized, and 
perhaps fortunate themselves in this respect. 

There are the greatest extremes in the social solidarity 
of the family as a group. There may be a separation 
/of the unmarried boys and girls from the family, usually 
inaugurated at adolescence; or there may be a segrega- 
tion of all the men of the community in the men’s-house; 
and in some cases, this separation exists even at meal 
times. When, however, we review the differences in the 
character of the family life in various countries occupied 
by members of our own race, we realize that family 
ideals operate within very wide limits. The savages 
are not the only people who relegate the women to 
domestic affairs pure and simple, nor is the savage the 
only person who spends most of his time at his club. 
Unlike the modern civilized community, however, it is 
the men, not the women, who take the greatest interest in 
religious pursuits. Most frequently the women arc denied 
any active part in the worship of the gods. 

This is not the time or place to enlarge upon the 
present status of the modern family where, beyond the 
mere act of propagation, the activities of some families 
cease. Day nurseries, nursery schools, kindergartens, 
and summer camps take away many of the functions 
of the family. Instruction, deportment, and religion are 
all usually outside the family at the present time. 


132 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


It is not well to draw too sharp a distinction between 
modern man and, more especially, the continental Euro- 
pean and primitive man, when it comes to the question 
of marriage and the gratification of the sex impulse. 
There is no doubt that the two categories are usually 
distinct in savage society. Marriage is often based 
purely upon economic grounds. Man needs someone to 
work for him, to cook, and to labor in the field. But 
how different is this from the kind of union often found 
in peasant communities in Europe and country districts 
in America? We often fail to realize that the Anglo- 
Saxon family ideal is late in putting in an appearance 
and is nearly unique. 

In the consideration of marriage as an institution, the 
discussion will be limited to the question of legal wed- 
lock, leaving aside the subject of sex. As has already 
been observed, marriage and the gratification of the 
sex impulse may belong to two distinct categories, not 
only among savages but also among many peoples who 
do not come under this classification. From the point 
of view of sociology, the nature of sexual unions is of 
little consequence until they are recognized by custom or 
law. 

Westermarck’s latest definition of marriage is “A rela- 
tion of one or more men to one or more women which 
is recognized by custom or law and involves certain 
rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering 
the union and in the case of the children born of it.” It 
is needless to add that the rights and duties involved 
therein vary widely. It should be noted also that this 
definition does not say anything about the exclusive 
possession of one or more men by one woman, or of one 
or more women by one man. We shall see later that 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 132 


certain forms of marriage in some parts of Australia, 
for example, are characterized by what has often been 
called group-marriage, or “sexual communism.” 

The historical approach brings out clearly the various 
theories that have been held on the origin of marriage 
and of the domestic group. 


CuassicaL IpkAsS oF THE F AMILY 


Among the first theorists regarding the family were 
Plato and Aristotle, both of whom use for illustrations 
of an early family group the Cyclopes of Homer, who 
“have neither assemblies for consultation nor themistes, 
but everyone exercises jurisdiction over his wives and his 
children.” This was the patriarchal theory made more 
precise by Filmer’s “Patriarcha,’”’ published in London 
in 1680. This idea of a patriarchate is, however, usually 
associated with Sir Henry Maine, formerly Regius Pro- 
fessor of Civil Law at Cambridge. In his Ancient Law, 
published in 1861, he considered the primordial cell of 
social development to be the patriarchal family. It is 
difficult to say “what society of men had not been orig- 
inally based upon the paternal family.” He found it 
among the Romans, Greeks, Hindus, Celts, and the 
Teutonic and Slavonic peoples. Maine really knew 
intimately only the Roman family, where the pater 
familias was the head of the household and had the 
power of life and death over his wife, children, and 
slaves. There is a considerable difficulty in determining 
how large a part the patriarchal family has played in 
the early histories of the other peoples enumerated above. 
Maine certainly showed a “lofty contempt” of the large 
mass of data upon savage peoples. The patriarchal 
family is by no means a simple group, and it is certainly 


134 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


not the “primordial cell” out of which the family has 
grown. 


EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS OF THE FAMILY 


Bachofen’s Das Mutterrecht appeared in the same year 
as Maine’s book. This was a general attack upon the 
theory of the patriarchate as being the first form of the 
family. Maine’s theory was first definitely challenged 
by Spencer. Post, McLennan, Morgan, Lubbock, and 
a host of other writers whom we may call the Evolu- 
tionary School also disagreed with Maine. Although 
often differing among themselves in detail, these writers 
all believed in a definite series of steps in the evolution 
of the family, postulating promiscuity as the original 
stage of the sexual relations of the savage. 

Dismissing for the moment the arguments advanced 
for and against a universal beginning in promiscuity, 
let us investigate the other main points of the Evolu- 
tionary School. The matriarchate would necessarily 
follow a promiscuous start, as fatherhood would be 
unknown, and the mother would naturally be the head 
of the family and society would be dominated by her. 
But a true matriarchate or woman-rule has never been 
found in any society. Female descent, however, is by no 
means uncommon, and the distinction should always be 
made between mother-rule, or the matriarchate, and 
mother-descent, or the matrilineal family. McLennan 
believed that female infanticide was a common, perhaps 
a general custom. The natural consequence of this was 
few women—hence the marriage of one woman with 
several men, polyandry, which is the earliest type of 
the family, according to this theory, which rests on 
marriage. Multiple husbands in time give way to mul- 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 135 


tiple wives, commonly called polygamy, but more prop- 
erly termed polygyny. The cowvade marks the transition 
between the two types, where emphasis is laid upon 
the father. With polygyny the patriarchal family fol- 
lows as a matter of course, the male head ruling over 
his numerous wives and children. Finally monogamy 
is placed at the end of the series. 


Mopern IpEAs OF THE FAMILY 


The third stage in the history of the discussion of 
the evolution of the family and marriage centers around 
the names of Starcke and Westermarck, although others 
might well be added to the list of those who are critical 
of the Evolutionary School.t With the possible excep- 
tion of Rivers, practically all modern investigators of 
this question seem to agree that promiscuity never was 
@ universal stage in the history of the sexual life of the 
savage. Rivers writes, “We have clear evidence that 
existing varieties of mankind practise sexual commu- 
nism, and man must therefore have tendencies in that 
direction.” But he adds, “We need more evidence before 
we should make up our minds concerning the existence 
of group-marriage as a regular feature of the history of 
human society. Even if its existence in the case of the 
clan can be proved, or if it can be shown to be, or to 
have been, a widespread practice, it need not follow that 
it has been universal among mankind and has formed 
a constant feature of the evolution of human society.” 2 

There are no definite steps starting with promiscuity 
and leading upward to monogamy at the apex of the 
pyramid. Some of the peoples with most rudimentary 
cultures, such as the Bushmen, the Andamanese, and 
the Veddahs are strictly monogamous. The pairing of 


136 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


one man and one woman has a great “survival value,” 
as it affords to the offspring the care of both parents. 

The arguments seeming to favor a universal stage of 
promiscuity “flow from two sources.” The first is com- 
posed of books of ancient authors, the tales of travellers, 
and the accounts of missionaries. From the time of 
Herodotus and Strabo down to the present, many writers 
have attempted to describe the customs of savages. The 
traveller’s pen has been declared to be a “thinking 
organ.” ‘There is perhaps no phase of early life where 
more confusion and misinterpretation have followed from 
this “organ” in the hands of the traveller than in regard 
to sexual relations and marriage. Unlimited promiscu- 
ity has been reported from all parts of the world, and 
nowhere is it really found. The reports of missionaries 
often fail to interpret correctly marital relations differ- 
ing from those of civilized man. There are important 
exceptions to this rule, however, and we have many 
excellent and accurate accounts from ministers of the 
Gospel regarding savage customs. 

The second class of arguments which seem to favor 
promiscuity falls into the realm of folk-lore—survivals 
—comparable to the rudimentary organs of the body. 
These no longer function, but their mere presence shows 
that at some time in the past they had an important 
part to play. Much of value may often be learned from 
the study of certain customs which seem to be emblem- 
atic of the past. Marett likens this study of survivals 
in folk-lore to the process of casting out of the drawing- 
room the unfashionable bit of furniture and placing it in 
the man’s room, in the children’s playroom, or even in 
the attic. These things were formerly admired and use- 
ful; now they are scorned. There is always a danger 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 137 


in the investigation of the old-fashioned. This furniture 
may not have been used by the family; it may have 
been inherited from distant relatives; it may have been 
bought at auction; or it may not even be “an antique,” 
and thus have had no previous association with the 
family at all. As an interpretation of the past, diffi- 
culties are often encountered in the study of survivals. 
One can go too far, and many lines of explanation are 
often available to account for curious customs out of 
place in their present environment. The true interpre- 
tation is perhaps not the most obvious. 

Writers of the Evolutionary School have cited many 
customs which they believe are survivals of a time when 
promiscuity reigned. There seems little doubt that all 
of these practices can be satisfactorily explained in other 
ways, and that indiscriminate sexual relations are not ac- 
countable for their beginnings. The levirate_is one of 
these customs, the marriage of the dead brother’s widow. 
This was formerly a practice of the Hebrews, and is still 
found among many savage peoples. In Deuteronomy, 
xxv, 5-6, we read: “If brethren dwell together, and one 
of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall 
not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother 
shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and 
perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. 
And it shall be that the first-born which she beareth 
shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, 
that his name be not put out of Israel.” This was a 
religious obligation among the Jews, based upon the 
desire for offspring and the fact that a marriage con- 
tract was between families and not between individuals. 
The levirate may assume several forms; sometimes the 
widow is given to one of the younger brothers of the 


138 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


deceased husband, at other times the widow may be 
allowed to choose from a large number of her husband’s 
kinsmen. The man may even have access to his wife’s 
sisters during her lifetime. As Lowie makes clear, the 
juridical and psychological implications of the levirate 
may be quite different. The custom does not in any 
way indicate a previous state of promiscuity, but is, 
in general, as Tylor states, the result of the idea that 
marriage is a contract bertenn groups rather than be- 
tween individuals, and the support of the widow is in- 
cumbent upon ie family of the dead husband. The 
sororate is also found, where the man marries the sister 
or sisters of his wife. 

Another series of customs advocated as proof of the 
free sexual relations cluster about the term “phallic wor- 
ship.” The greatest development of this type of prac- 
tice is found, not among the must primitive peoples, 
but among those far higher in the scale of culture, as 
in Greece, Rome, and India. In the latter country 
there is proof that it was a comparatively late arrival. 
Tne germ of phallic worship shows itself in the Vedas, 
and the “gross luxuriance of licentiousness ... is of 
later growth.” There is nothing necessarily unusual 
and repelling in worshipping the powers of genera- 
tion, the symbol of life. The fruits of the field may be 
dependent upon magical rites of an earthly nature, and 
the presence of these rites in the spring festivals of 
many peoples——the May Pole dances, for example,— 
are interesting survivals of the same idea. But they 
do not carry with them any proof of sexual license as 
a universal stage in the development of society. The 
same can be said regarding sacred prostitution, the 
lascivious religious rites connected with the worship of 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 139 


the Babylonian Mylitta, the Hellenic Aphrodite, the 
Carthaginian Moloch, and the Italian Venus. These are 
special developments among an advanced people of the 
worship of procreation. The sacred harlotry mentioned 
in the Old Testament falls into the same category. 

Another class of practices advanced in the attempt to 
prove the same theory is the “scandalous nuptial rites” 
which Bachofen and Lubbock regard as acts of “expia- 
tion for individual marriage.” It was argued that when 
a& woman, originally held as a common possession, be- 
came the companion of one man, there was a violation 
of communal rights, and some compensation was de- 
manded by the companions of the single owner. The 
law of jus prime noctis applies to chiefs, priests, and 
other leaders, as well as to the friends of the bridegroom. 
The droit du seigneur which some Suppose existed in 
feudal times in Europe falls into the same class, West- 
ermarck gives a whole chapter to customs of this kind. 
There seems little doubt that they can be explained in 
several ways. The strict regulations thrown about this 
class of customs in regard to time, place, and those ac- 
corded the privilege, seem to show it is an encroachment 
on monogamy rather than a delimitation of a former 
state of promiscuity. 

There remains to be considered group-marriage or 
sexual communism, found principally in parts of Aus- 
tralia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Here, it must be con- 
fessed, there is far more difficulty in finding an explana- 
tion pointing away from promiscuity. In its simplest 
form, a group of men is married to a group of women. 
In practically every case, each man has a primary 
wife, but access to her is allowed to others. In the 
same way a woman has a main husband, but she is 


140 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


not his sole companion. In most instances the men as 
a group are related to each other and also in a very 
definite way to the women who, in turn, are of the 
same kindred. It is not a haphazard arrangement be- 
tween a heterogeneous collection of men and a group 
of women. This custom is hedged about usually by 
the strictest rules. Here, as in the former case of jus 
prime noctis, it seems probable that we have an intrench- 
ment on monogamy, starting with a single wife and en- 
larging the gamut of sexual relations, rather than a 
legalization and a more strict proscribing of the limits 
of free sexual communism. Strength is given to this 
view by the fact that tribal incest rules are usually 
strictly enforced in all places where group-marriage is 
found. Among the Masai, for example, who allow a 
preliminary freedom to unmarried warriors and imma- 
ture girls which may be likened to prostitution, each 
man finally settles down in a separate establishment 
with one wife. 

The classificatory system of relationships has to be 
considered in connection with the question of promis- 
cuity. Morgan was the first to record the fact that most 
peoples with cultures of the lower order have a system 
of designating relationship which differs to a great extent 
from the method in use among civilized peoples. This 
classificatory system uses terms for classes of persons 
rather than for any distinct individual. Our system is 
classificatory in several instances as, for example, in 
the use of the word cousin. Limiting its use to first 
cousins, it may refer to mother’s brother’s or sister’s 
children, male or female, and father’s brother’s or sis- 
ter’s children of either sex. It is quite as general a 
term as several used in connection with the classificatory 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 141 


system. There are very many complications and differ- 


ences in the orders of nomenclature used by amie at 


peoples which cannot be considered here. 

- In the Hawaiian system of classificatory terms ra 
ig a segregation by generations. Excluding differences 
based on age or sex, all a man’s relatives of the same 
generation are pateeena by the same term. The word 
father is used for the father and all the father’s brothers 
and for mother’s brothers as well. Mother is the term 
employed in addressing the true mother and all her sis- 
ters, and also the father’s sisters. Brother is used for own 
peniher and for all male cousins; sister for own sister, and 
for all female cousins. Several writers have shown that 
this system, far from being the first, as thought by 
Morgan, is a later development of a ee simple method, 
often called the Dakota system. In this the terms eed 
for persons of an older generation than that of the 
speaker are employed for father and father’s brother, 
mother’s brother, father’s sister, and mother and mother’s 
sister. Both systems are alike in having single words for 
father and father’s brother and mother and mother’s 
sister, but the second has a separate term for mother’s 
rsaphanet and for father’s sister. These are only two of 
the many varieties of family nomenclature. 

Do these terms used in the classificatory system con- 
note sexual communism? Morgan believed that the 
Hawaiian system, based strictly on generations, pointed 
to a time when there was sexual license between all 
members of the same generation, between brothers and 
sisters and between all cousins, as each sex addressed 
the other sex of the same generation in the same terms. 
It barred intercourse between parents and children, as 
they belonged to different generations. A man’s Oe 


142 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


were also his fathers, because they were potential part- 
ners of the man’s mother and her sisters, who were 
in turn sisters of his father and uncles. So all a man’s 
nephews and nieces were his sons and daughters, be- 
cause he was the potential companion of all his sisters, 
as they were all his wives as well as the wives of his 
brothers. 

There are several difficulties in the way of accepting 
the premise that relationship terms were primarily based 
upon sexual prerogatives; that “father” as a term meant 
procreator or potential procreator. McLennan, Cunow, 
and Lowie have all noted the fact that if we accept the 
theory that all “fathers” are potential begetters, we must 
also not fail to accept the corollary that “mothers,” the 
real mother and her sisters, have all given birth to the 
child. Morgan, Rivers, and others offer explanations for 
this dilemma, but they are open to grave objections. 
The Hawaiian system represents simply a clear strati- 
fication of blood kindred by generation. In the levirate 
and sororate there is ample explanation why the father 
and father’s brother and the mother and mother’s brother 
should be classed together. Kinship terminology does 
not necessarily connote an actual sexual relationship. 
A man may never inherit his brother’s widow because 
his brother still survives him, or because the widow is 
already married to another brother, but, nevertheless, 
he is called father by his brother’s children. 

The classificatory system stands for certain social 
relationships between members of a group, based upon 
kinship, but not upon an actual sexual relationship. 
Social etiquette demands special recognition of certain 
lines of relatives. In some cases this may lead to the 
‘joking relationship,” a “reciprocal familiarity, such as 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 143 


chaffing or billingsgate between individuals standing in 
a specific relationship.” In other cases etiquette may 
demand a strict tabu between certain relatives. 

The theory of Rivers in connection with group-mar- 
riage and relationship terms should be examined in some 
detail. While admitting that there is “no reason to 
believe that Morgan’s theory of an original promis- 
cuity is correct,” he adds that there is more evidence 
for an intermediate stage of organized sexual communism 
as shown by group-marriage. “Many features of the 
classificatory system of relationship, otherwise difficult to 
understand, become readily explicable if they grew out of 
a state of society in which a group of men had a group of 
wives in common.” Again, “Sexual group-relations 
form a potentiality of human nature which we have 
got. to accept.” Rivers certainly makes it clear that 
he considers it probable that after the earliest “collect- 
ing stage’ where small groups wandered about as hunt- 
ers, is passed, there comes in with agriculture and the clan 
organization sexual communism, as shown by the classi- 
ficatory system and group-marriage. It should be em- 
phasized that the classificatory system and group- 
marriage are not conterminous. The former is found 
throughout the aboriginal world, whereas group-mar- 
riage is comparatively rare. It is absent in many large 
areas. Sexual license and marriage fall into two dis- 
tinct categories, as has already been shown. Sexual 
promiscuity is undoubtedly found in some early socie- 
ties as it is found today in modern life, but this is quite 
a different thing from saying that it has taken the place 
of the individual family. The mere presence of the strict- 
est rules regarding prohibited degrees of marriage and 
the necessity of the choice of a mate being made from 


144 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


a selected group all point away from the thesis of free- 
dom of sexual life. Infractions of these rules are often 
punishable by death. In practically every case of 
group-marriage, as found among savages, the laws of | 
incest of the tribe are strictly observed, and there is 

| often a definite relationship existing between the group 
of husbands and the group of wives, as well as among 
‘the husbands as a class. Finally, a man almost always 
| has a& main wife and the woman a main husband. 
Marital rights acéorded to others, either as kinsmen or 
as guests, are simply an extension of the privilege of 
the true husband to others, and usually by his per- 
mission. Concubinage based upon strict rules of rela- 
tionship might be used to express the status of secondary 
Wives or secondary husbands. In Roman times con- 
cubinatus meant a permanent cohabitation, without mar- 
riage, recognized by law. In the case of many tribes, 
men of distinction were the ones who usually had mul- 
tiple wives, as is the general rule in polygyny. 

In a few cases, age and not kinship is the factor 
connecting the members of a group of husbands. In 
one part of New Guinea all the men born within a 
given time make up a group, and between all members 
of this age-class there are mutual social and religious 
duties, as well as privileges. The men share wives in 
common, but even here each man has a main ne his 
individual possession. Chor 

An attempt has been made to answer some of the 
arguments which have been advanced in the attempt to 
prove either a preliminary stage of promiscuity in the 
history of the family or a stage appearing with the clan 
organization and agriculture, marked by the presence 
of group-marriage and relationship terms. There are 


—— 


Social Origins and Social Continurties 145 


other arguments against a postulated statc of sextual 
promiscuity. Howard divides these into three classes: 
the zoological, the physiological, and the psychological. 

We have already considered the prolongation of infancy 
among the anthropoid apes and the necessary co-opera- 
tion of the father and mother. The matrimonial habits 
of man’s nearest progenitors are not promiscuous. Mari- 
tal fidelity is found among the animals. The economic 
feature of the co-operation of the father and mother 
in obtaining a sufficient food supply has also been 
pointed out. In other words, a monogamous family, 
found among many of the lowest savages, is a direct 
inheritance from the non-human animal world. 

The physiological, perhaps more properly called the 
biological, argument against promiscuity is more difficult 
to prove. Free sexual relations would undoubtedly 
lead to very close inbreeding. Scientific knowledge 
is not, however, available at the present time to prove 
the evil effects of this method of mating as regards man. 
Some have claimed that sexual excitement in the long 
run may lead to barrenness, but there is no proof that 
a low birth rate would necessarily follow promiscuity. 
The pathological condition unfavorable to fecundity in 
prostitutes may be entirely the result of diseases unknown 
to the early savage. 

The psychological argument, so strongly advanced 
by Westermarck, is based upon the presence of sexual 
jealousy among animals as well as among men. Too 
much can be made of this, as there is no doubt that 
in communities practicing group-marriage jealousy seems 
to be often strangely lacking. Its failure to play its 
part may be due to a “socially induced custom.” 

The history of the discussion of marriage and the 


146 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


family has been traced, starting with the classical idea 
of the patriarchate: next, the evolutionary school with 
definite stages of development, beginning with promis- 
cuity and ending with monogamy, and, finally, the mod- 
ern theory which, denying the postulation of a previous 
universal state of sexual freedom, places monogamy as 
the first form of marriage. Even Rivers seems to grant 
that the earliest societies, “the collectors,” did not prac- 
tice promiscuity. Monogamy is found among many of 
the lowest savages known, and it is the most common 
form of the marriage relationship. Group-marriage, 
which is perhaps a feature of clan organization, but not 
by any means a necessary factor, may be, in my opinion, 
a special development from monogamy. The classifica- 
tory system of relationship, found the world over, in no 
way indicates a corresponding prevalence of sexual com- 
munism. Nothing has ever completely supplanted the 
individual monogamous family in the history of human 
society. 


VARIETIES OF THE Forms or MARRIAGE 


Monogamy is not, of course, the only type of mar- 
riage, but the presence of polyandry or polygyny must 
be due, as Lowie remarks, to some non-biological factor 
in a community, as the number of males and females 
born is approximately equal. Polyandry, far from being 
a common form of marriage and a necessary step in 
the evolution of the family, is a very rare and abnormal 
type. It is found in a few Eskimo communities, among 
the Bahima—a Bantu tribe of Africa—the Guanches 
of the Canary Islands, and in the Marquesas Islands. 
“Type specimens” of polyandry are found in southern 
India and in Tibet. Formerly it was imagined that an 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 147 


unfavorable environment was one of the main causes 
for a plurality of husbands, as it took more than one 
man to support a family. The environmentalist has 
little ground for this supposition, as the Eskimo are 
maritime hunters, the Todas are a pastoral people, and 
in Tibet the agricultural portion of the population are 
polyandrous while the pastoral part of the inhabitants 
are not. It was at one time thought that female 
infanticide was a second factor necessary for the rise of 
this type of marriage. The practice of killing female 
children is found to some extent among. the Eskimo, 
where girl babies are considered to be a burden, owing 
to the arduous life in the polar regions. Female in- 
fanticide may also be the origin of polyandry among 
the Todas, but the custom is not based upon economic 
grounds as among the Eskimo. The agricultural 
Tibetans and the Marquesans are polyandrous, but 
they do not put their female infants to death. Hence 
there is no definite correlation between economic condi- 
tions, female infanticide, and this special type of 
marriage. 

There are two varieties of polyandry: the fraternal 
or “adelphic,” found in Tibet, where the husbands are 
brothers; and the non-fraternal, called,—mistakenly, ac- 
cording to Rivers,—the Nair type, found among the 
Nairs of Malabar. In Tibet when a man marries, his 
brothers also share in the relationship as a matter of 
course. They all live together in amity. As soon as a 
child is born, the eldest brother performs a rite called 
“giving the bow and arrow,” that makes him the legal 
father, although all his brothers are considered also as 
the fathers of the child. In the non-fraternal type, the 
husbands often live in different villages, and the wife 


148 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


usually visits each in turn. Here the sociological father 
is the first man married, and his performance of the 
bow and arrow rite makes him the legal father not only 
of the child but also of subsequent progeny. After 
the birth of two or three children another husband 
may become the “father.” Here again we have an 
excellent example of the sociological status differing from 
that based on physiology. Another illustration of this 
is given by Rivers from Melanesia, where the man who 
plays the part of mid-wife becomes the father of the 
child and his wife is regarded as the mother. Social 
convention may thus determine parenthood. Legal 
adoption with us does much the same thing; it changes 
the status of the parents from a physiological to a legal 
and social one. Among the Todas, where the practice of 
female infanticide is declining, there is a tendency, es- 
pecially among those of the Nilgiri Hills, to combine 
polyandry with polygyny, a set of brothers sharing, not 
a single wife, but perhaps two, thus bringing about a 
type of group-marriage. Polyandry has been reported 
in classical times. Polybius states that it was found 
in ancient Greece, and, according to Cesar, it occurred 
among the Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. 
Polygyny, unlike the preceding form of marriage, is 
found over a great part of the world. It is always coin- 
cident with monogamy, as the proportion of the sexes 
prevents its practice by the entire population. There 
are few complications attached to this variety of wed- 
lock. The forms differ according to whether the wives 
live together or have different households. The rigors 
of an Arctic life or the devastating effects of war may 
result in a surplus of women; polygyny may result. In 
general, it is usually limited to the rich and to those of 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 149 


rank. Africa is the classical home of aboriginal 
polygyny: It is also, of course, widespread in Moham- 
medan countries. In some parts of Melanesia it is the 
privilege of the aged to have multiple wives. In Eddy- 
stone Island, for example, the practice is allowed a chief 
who has taken ten heads in warfare. It appears as the 
result of wealth, but in itself it may produce wealth, as 
there are more helpers in the house and in the fields and a 
larger number of children who are potential workers. 
The girls may later yield goodly sums to their parents 
in marriage. 

It is a mistaken idea that polygyny is always a sign 
of female inferiority, and that it is always a degenera- 
tion on the part of the women. The wife may welcome 
others as helpers in her labors. Barrenness in the first 
wife renders a second necessary in order to have chil- 
dren. In China, where a son is of paramount impor- 
tance, second wives are often selected as the result of 
the failure of the first to bear a son. In all polygynous 
communities there is always a tendency toward monog- 
amy in regarding the first wife as the true wife and the 
others as concubines. The fundamental type of mar- 
riage 1s monogamy. Polyandry is not a stage in the 
history of marriage, but a sporadic phenomenon. 
Polygyny, although far more widespread, does not carry 
with it the difficult problems of fatherhood encountered 
in the case of multiple husbands, and it is of little 
sociological importance in the Hilors of human society 
as a whole. 


MARRIAGE ContTRACT 


Of far more significance than the form of marriage 
is the manner by which a marriage is made. In the 


150 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


investigation of the marriage contract, historically con- 
sidered, the classical idea was that marriage by capture 
was a universal practice. It was also formerly thought 
that female infanticide was very common, leading to 
few women; and, consequently, there was a necessity 
of going Heise the group and forcibly capturing a 
wife. From this arose the prevalent custom of exogamy, 
meaning “to marry out.” The study of survivals was 
brought to bear upon this subject, as in the attempt 
to prove freedom in sexual relationships. Symbolic ab- 
ductions in various forms are noted over great parts 
of the world. The sham battle, the pretended theft, 
the hidden bride, were all a part of the argument to 
show that originally there was a real battle and a cap- 
ture of the bride from an enemy people. Still later sur- 
vivals in the rice and confetti battles in many modern 
weddings could be added as a case in point. Some have 
explained these acts of ceremonial avoidance as a sys- 
tematic expression of coyness of the female, like the 
coyness of birds in the pairing season. It became “good 
form” for the girl not to yield without a struggle. In 
Sparta the seizure of the bride was founded on an ancient 
custom that the girl should not surrender her freedom 
and her virginity until compelled to by the violence of 
her future husband. Others have explained this dramatic 
capture as a symbol of appropriation, a sign of the 
subjection and subordination of the wife. It might even 
be an attempt by the male to show his “adroitness and 
prowess.” Rivers thinks that the mock fights at a wed- 
ding festival may be explained in some instances by a 
former existence of cross-cousin marriage. In southern 
India, for example, where there are ritual conflicts, and 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 151 


a man married a person other than his cousin, he had to 
satisfy his cousin by a payment. 

Leaving aside this study of survivals, the complica- 
tions arising from a universal practice of wife-capture 
are many. Tribe A is stronger than tribe B; hence A 
captures its wives from B. Where do the men of B 
obtain their wives? They cannot get them, from A, as 
the latter are stronger than B.. Hence B must seek out 
a tribe weaker than themselves. C fulfills the conditions, 
but the men of C cannot depend either upon A or B for 
their wives; they must go elsewhere. There is no end 
to the process until the weakest tribe in the neighbor- 
hood finds its women captured, and they are left for- 
ever without wives. A, of course, might be stronger 
than B for a season and obtain all the women of B. The 
next year B becomes stronger than A, but, instead of 
capturing wives from A, they might well wish to rescue 
their captured sisters. There is, of course, no equilibrium 
of forces such as would be required from a universal 
custom of wife-capture. Chronic hostility is altogether 
too often assumed in the various theories regarding early 
society. 

No one would be rash enough to state that wives 
were never captured. Many were; but it was not the 
usual method, nor was_it universal among all early 
peoples. Captured women were often likely to be con- 
cubines and slaves rather than wives. 

The older school of writers thought that wife-capture 
gave way in time to wife-purchase. Spencer considered 
that purchase was the usual substitute for violence as 
civilization progresses. Some form of purchase has al- 
ways been the normal method of obtaining wives. It 
is usual to distinguish between exchange and the pur- 


152 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


chase of mates. Compensation is perhaps a good term 
to include the two methods. The main idea underlying 
the marriage contract is to obtain an equivalent for the 
loss suffered by a family, or a larger group, of one of 
its women. There may be an economic factor here, 
or it may be purely a social one. 

As will be shown later, the marriage within a family 
group of cross-cousins is very common, and here there 
is seldom a payment. There is reciprocity between 
members of the “joint family.” Exchange or barter 
between members of two groups is also brought about, 
not by purchase, but by compensation. A man from 
group A takes a wife from group B, a man from B 
selects his bride from A: there is no loss on either side. 

Marriage by service, so common in Hebrew tradition, 
is another method of compensation. The bridegroom 
works for his father-in-law for a certain time in order 
to win his wife. This may be a form of partial pay- 
ment given to the father-in-law in return for his daugh- 
ter, or it may be, on the other hand, a sort of proba- 
tionary period as a test of the ability of the man to 
support a wife and a family. 

Strict purchase where a definite payment is made for 
the wife, continued in form among many civilized peo- 
ples until quite recent times. A wife-market was once a 
common feature in several eastern European countries. 
There is a very wide range in this form of the marriage 
contract. The price, in general, is equivalent to the eco- 
nomic loss sustained by the family of the bride. The 
amount to be paid may be a definite sum or it may 
depend upon the strength, the age, and the condition 
of the woman, and her capacity to bear children. Where 
there is infant bethrothal, a series of payments may begin 





Social Origins and Social Continutties 153 


at the time of the girl’s birth. The purchase price may 
sometimes be looked upon as an investment of capital. 
Dividends are secured by the work done by the wife 
and the children born of the marriage. If there is 
no issue the investment is a poor one and the wife 
may be sent back to her father. Among the Kwakiutl 
of the Northwest Coast the bridegroom buys, in addi- 
tion to his bride, the use of her crest and certain privi- 
leges of her clan for the benefit of his future children. 
According to the custom of interest-bearing gifts among 
these people, the father of the girl has to repay the pur- 
chase price to the husband as soon as children are born. 
For one child he must pay 200 per cent interest on the 
price paid to him by his son-in-law. For additional chil- 
dren the interest rate is larger. After these payments are 
made, the father is said to have redeemed his daughter 
and the marriage is annulled. If she is inclined to stay 
with her husband she does so of her own free will. If 
the husband desires a further claim on his wife, he makes 
a new payment to his father-in-law.4 

In the early days of Israel, the bride-price appears 
to have been five shekels of silver. Boaz declares that 
he purchased Ruth for his bride. Howard gives a whole 
chapter of his book to wife-purchase as found in the 
olden days in England and the Teutonic countries, as 
shown by folk-laws and the old English “codes.” The 
present marriage of the English Church, George Bernard 
Shaw points out, is “really only an honest attempt to 
make the best of a commercial contract of property 
and slavery by subjecting it to some religious restraint 
and elevating it by some touch of poetry.” 

There are often conditions where the bride-price must 
be returned or expensive presents are required from the 


154 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


family of the woman. There is thus a tendency among 
‘some peoples for the bride-price to pass into the dowry. 

There is always a danger in making general state- 
ments regard any custom, as each culture is a mosaic 
made up of many parts. The patterns are so varied 
that a single stone from one design, although seeming 
to resemble another from a second figure, may, when 
taken from its setting, appear an entirely different color. 
Methods of obtaining a wife may differ even among the 
same people. Lowie shows that a Crow Indian may 
acquire a wife in the following ways: by purchase, by 
inheriting his brother’s widow—the levirate,—from an 
alliance or exchange with no payment, and by capturing 
an alien woman from the Dakotas. 

Elopment is by no means uncommon among primitive 
peoples where, mutual attraction being present, there is 
an excessive bride-price, a monopoly of the women by 
the older men, or a romantic inclination of the man and 
woman. It has already been noted, however, that mar- 
riage in savage communities is usually a contract between 
groups, and it is in most cases far removed from anything 
approaching sentiment. There is no reason to suppose, 
however, that love does not sometimes figure. In cultures 
of the lowest grades there seems to be some inclination on 
the part of the man and woman, boy and girl, to take 
matters into their own hands, and self-betrothal is the 
result. When the family and clan become more important 
and property increases in extent, the kinship group is a 
necessary adjunct in arranging a union. 

Marriage rites have a relatively unimportant part ia 
the festive life of early society as compared with puberty 
ceremonies which usually hold first place in the social 
life. The form of the marriage rite depends upon the 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 155 


character of the contract. Gocds are exchanged and 
there is a bestowal of the bride, often with a ceremonial 
avoidance by the girl and her famiy. Eating out of the 
same vessel is perhaps the most common wedding rite. 
Among the Aztecs the clothing of the bride and that of 
the groom were tied together as a symbol of union. 
Sometimes prophylactic measures are taken to offset the 
spiritual evils resulting from contact with women. An- 
other type of marriage ceremony is that where measures 
are taken to induce fecundity by magical means. 

Very few general statements can be made about di- 
vorce. All degrees are found, from separation at the 
will of either husband or wife, through that allowed solely 
to the husband or to the wife, to the stage where 
no divorce is allowed. This last is usually based upon 
sacramental grounds. Barrenness and adultery are per- 
haps the two most common causes for dissolving the 
marriage bond. But there are certain factors which 
tend to prevent separations. The disinclination of the 
father to return the bride-price and the consequent need 
of advancing more property to obtain a new wife tend 
to limit the number of divorces: The presence of off- 
spring is another factor making for permanent unions. 
Divorce is often common until children are born. The 
tendency towards permanent marriages is not based so 
much upon grounds of sentiment as upon those of eco- 
_homics. 


LIMITATION OF CHOICE oF MaTE 


No peoples exist where marriage is not forbidden within 
certain limits. Prohibited degrees are always found, 
and all marriages between members of certain groups 
are considered incestuous. Nothing in primitive society 


156 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


is perhaps more discountenanced than sexual impurity in 
the form of incest. Death is often the punishment for 
an infraction of the rules against marriage between those 
within the prohibited degrees. No tribes allow the union 
of parents and children, and brother-sister marriage is 
extremely uncommon. The latter was found among the 
Incas of Peru and in Hawaii, as well as among many 
of the later Pharaohs and the Ptolemies in Egypt. In 
all these cases the ruling family regarded the purity of 
their blood as being so far above that of any other 
people that no marriage outside the immediate kindred 
would satisfy these conditions; hence a brother was 
forced to marry his sister, as there was no one else with 
blood pure enough for him to wed. 

There is a tale of the Chukchee of northeastern Siberia 
that illustrates the fear of incest. The people living 
in the country are exterminated by famine. Only two 
are left, a full-grown girl and her infant brother. She 
feeds him with pounded meat, and when he grows up she 
asks him to marry her. “Otherwise,” she says, ‘we shall 
remain childless. We shall have no descendants and the 
earth will remain without people. It cannot be peopled 
otherwise. Who will see us? Who will say shame? Who 
will know about it in the world? We are all alone in the 
world.”’ The brother says, “I do not know, I feel badly: 
it is forbidden.” Then the sister begins to think. “How 
can I accomplish it? Our line of descent will break off 
with us.” The young woman then goes to a distant 
place, builds a house, quite different from their own, 
and prepares everything belonging to it. She makes new 
clothing for herself. Then she returns and tells her 
brother that she has seen a new house on the shore. The 
brother goes in search of it. The sister is already there. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 157 


She has changed her clothes, the expression of her face, 
the tone of her voice, and he takes her for another 
woman. After some hesitation he takes her for his wife. 
Then there begins a life in two houses, the sister is here 
and there and plays with success her double part. Fi- 
nally when she becomes pregnant, the brother ceases to 
think of his sister, and they live in the new place. One 
child is born, and then another. The family multiplies 
and becomes a people. From them all the people in the 
camps and villages are born This tale shows an 
interesting parallel with the story of Lot and his two 
daughters, as given in Genesis. 

The variation in the prohibited degrees of marriage is 
great. Marriage may be customary between a certain 
type of cousins, but it may be forbidden between mem- 
bers of two groups bearing the same name but with little 
possibility of blood relationship. The essence of a 
mystical danger between members of the opposite sex 
may be felt where no blood connection can be traced. 
On the other hand, certain near relatives may be consid- 
ered the proper choice. All this shows that sexual rela- 
tionship goes hand in hand with social customs. 
~ Exogamy, as we have seen, is the term employed to 
designate the rule that a man must select his wife from 
outside his own group. Endogamy, the opposite term, 
demands that a man must marry within his group. 
Exogamy and endogamy are not, however, mutually 
exclusive except within the same group. The Hindu 
castes are classic examples of endogamous units. Euro- 
pean royalty, before the War at least, was mainly endog- 
amous. McLennan, who is responsible for the terms 
exogamy and endogamy, was mistaken in thinking that 


158 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


tribes were exogamous. He considered that the universal 
custom of obtaining wives by capture led to a definite 
rule which forbade marriage between members of the 
same tribe, and compelled the men to seek mates out- 
side the tribal unit. Exogamy between tribes is prac- 
tically never found. The tribe is usually endogamous, 
and certain groups within the tribe are strictly exoga- 
mous. 

The groups within which marriage is forbidden under 
the rules of exogamy may be based upon locality, upon 
kinship, or upon a common name with no blood rela- 
tionship. Prohibition of marriage between residents of 
the same community, regardless of kinship—local 
exogamy, as it is called—is comparatively rare. 

Kxogamy based upon a group of “selected kin’ is the 
most common form of prohibition. The primitive family 
group is a bilateral affair. The family as a unit includes 
both the father and the mother. The duties of the chil- 
dren to both parents and of both parents to the children, 
the relationship terms, and the social etiquette demanded 
between members of a family group all go to prove that 
the bilateral family has a definite social status. After 
eliminating the very lowest ranks of early society, it 
may be said that most peoples who have arrived at a 
cultural level above that of the hunt are divided into 
two or more groups larger than the family. Sibs, clans, 
septs, moieties, are some of the terms given ') these 
larger divisions. They are usually unilateral in char- 
acter, in the sense that inheritance in one line and 
exogamy are general features of these classes. 

in a society made up of two divisions or moities the 
men of group A must obtain their wives from group B, 











Social Origins and Social Continuities 159 


and the children belong to A if the descent is patrilineal 
and to B if it is matrilineal. In the same way the men 
from group B select their wives from group A. This is 
the simplest example of the two-group system. It will 
be seen that the term kinship exogamy is not exact 
enough to apply to this typo of marriage relation. It is 
a selected group.of kindred, on either the mother’s or the 
father’s side. In this unit, larger than the family, there 
is a feeling of solidarity based upon some common tie. 
This may be a belief in a common ancestor or the pos- 
session of 2 common name. The actual blood relation- 
ship may be very remote or entirely lacking. The mys- 
tical potency of the name has already been considered. 
Among the Iroquois, for example, the members of the 
Wolf clan were not allowed to intermarry even if the man 
belonged to a different tribe from that of the woman. 
There was probably no trace of consanguinity between 
the two Wolf divisions, but a common name was a bar 
to intermarriage. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke of 
exogamy as a providential trait, as it kept the Smiths 
from being Smithed to death and the Joneses from being 
Jonesed to death. Exogamy relating to a common name 
is found in China. There are only a few more than five 
hundred surnames in all the country, so that large num- 
bers of people bear the same cognomen. Marriage be- 
tween persons bearing the same name is forbidden. The 
present superstition of ill-luck following the union of 
persons bearing the same name may be the last trace of 
the same idea. 

The Church recognized the cognatio spiritualis as a 
bar against marriage. The Emperor Justinian inaugu- 
rated a law forbidding marriage between a man and a 


160 Social Origins and Social Continurties 


woman who had stood as godparents to the same child. 
The Church has added other prohibitions on account of 
this spiritual relationship. 

Adoption, which is very common, brings with it the 
same prohibition regarding marriage and other social 
customs as consanguinity. The former often includes 
fictitious bonds that are as firm in the social structure 
as those based upon blood. 

Exogamy as it exists among the tribes in central, east- 
ern, and southern Australia is often a very complicated 
affair. There is the simple two-class system; a man of 
moiety A of a special totemic group must marry into a 
special totemic group of moiety B. The descent in some 
tribes with this rule is matrilineal; among others it is 
patrilineal. | 

The second type found in Australia is a four-class 
system, where each moiety is subdivided into two classes: 


1 3 
A B 
2 4 


The children, assuming paternal descent, belong to the 
moiety of the father, but to the class other than the one 
to which he belongs. Disregarding the totemic compli- 
cations, the following shows the rules of marriage and 
descent: 


A 1 marries B 3 and the children are A 2, 


A 2 “ B 4 & (f3 ifs “ A 1 
B 3 ifs A 1 (f3 “cc “ “cc B Py 
B 4 cc A 2 1 § cc it 3 “ B 3. 


The third type is still more complicated. Each of the 
two classes in each moiety is divided into two sub- 
classes, making eight in all. 


Social Origins and Social Continurties 161 


1 (odd) 5 (odd) 
of 
2 (even) 6 (even) 
A B 
3 (odd) 7 (odd) 
li iv 
4 (even) 8 (even) 


Assuming paternal descent, the children belong to the 
moiety of the father, but to the class differing from his. 
Up to this point the system is similar to the one previ- 
ously described. For the purposes of clearness, if we 
think of the first sub-class in each class as “odd” and 
the second as “even,” the father belonging to an “odd” 
sub-class would have children in an “even” sub-class. 
Thus, a man of moiety A, class i, sub-class 1 (odd), 
‘must marry a woman of moiety B, class iii, sub-class 5, 
and their children would belong to moiety A, class ii, 
sub-class 4 (even). The rules of descent for the men 
of one moiety marrying into the other run as follows: 

A i1 marries B iii 5 and the children are A ii 4, 
Agi. 2 os Brit Guay ok “« AU 3, 
Aiu3 se Birve wuts: ey “ A 12, 
Au 4 re BST yong . ner Are Tebce 


* There is a difficulty which has seldom been pointed out 
and has never been explained, when the men of moiety B marry 
women of the opposite division. Using only the numbers of the 
sub-class, theoretically, the rules would result in the following: 


5 marries 1 and the children are 8, 
6 cc 9 ‘cc é“ cc 6c ve 
7 “ 3 (T9 if 6c cc 6. 
8 6c 4 “ 6c if 3 “c 5. 


According to all accounts, however, the children of the four 
preceding unions are not respectively members of the sub-classes 
8, 7, 6, and 5, but of the sub-classes 7, 8, 5, and 6. This incon- 
sistency has never been accounted for. 


162 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


There are still further complications, into which it is 
not necessary to go, when a man cannot marry any 
women of the proper class, but only one who is related 
to him in a special way. With the exception of the 
simple two-class system, the classes and sub-classes only 
function as the regulators of marriage. 

Many explanations have been offered for the vari- 
ous rules limiting marriage in early society. Exogamy 
was certainly not due to a common custom of female 
infanticide, followed by wide-capture, or even to the ex- 
change of women of one tribe with those of another. 
Lubbock, who always held promiscuity to be a stage in 
the development of marriage, believed that, as all the 
Wives of one group were the common possession of all 
the men, a wife obtained outside the community belonged 
exclusively to the male who obtained her; hence the 
custom of exogamy came into practice. One theory 
traces the custom back to the animals. The head of the 
herd held all the females as his own property, and the 
young males necessarily had to find their mates outside 
the herd. The psychological-biological explanation for 
exogamy has many ramifications. Hobhouse and West- 
ermarck believe that instinct prevents the marriage of 
near kin,—“Familiarity breeds contempt.” The aver- 
sion towards marrying close relatives may extend to 
neighbors. Among some of the Eskimo a boy and girl 
brought up in the same household, even if they are no 
relation to each other, are not allowed to wed. There 
is not the least doubt that there is far less sexual curiosity 
between those brought up under the same roof. But if 
there is an innate aversion to the marriage of near 
kin, a rule would not be required to prevent it. In fact, 
in the frequent bisection of a group into exogamous 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 163 


classes there is nothing, theoretically, to prevent a man 
from marrying his daughter provided the descent is 
reckoned in the female line, as the father will belong in 
a different class from that of his daughter. With male 
descent, a woman may marry her son, as far as the rules 
of exogamy are concerned. We have seen, however, that 
marriage between parents and children is never found. 

Let us grant, therefore, a predisposition on the part of 
mankind against the marriage of father and daughter, 
and of mother and son. The extension of this instinc- 
tive aversion to the marriage of the children of two 
brothers might be allowed if we did not find that 
there seems in many parts of the world to be no desire to 
prohibit, but rather to approve, the marriage between 
-cross-cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister. 
There can be little doubt, therefore, that the rules regu- 
lating marriage are not based purely upon an innate 
horror of incest. Repugnance towards marriages be- 
tween certain classes of relatives is great, but unions are 
often considered desirable between other relatives, often 
no more distantly related than those between whom mar- 
riage is regarded as incestuous. In other words, the ex- | 
tension of this aversion against marriage, after it leaves 
the realm of the closest relatives——parents and children, 
and brothers and -sisters,—is not based upon instinct 
but upon social rules. 

The supposedly evil effects of incestuous marriages, 
several authors believe, were recognized by early man, 
and hence exogamy was established to prevent inbreed- 
ing. It is hardly to be supposed that the savage would 
recognize the disastrous results of too close marriages 
when the present scientific world is not yet able to de- 
termine with any exactness what these evils are, if any, 


164 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


which follow inbreeding in the human species. Granted 
that primitive man thought that he had detected bad 
eugenics in such marriages, the rules dividing the com- 
munity into two exogamous classes would not have pre- 
vented very close inbreeding on one side of the family, 
and marriage between cross-cousins is a very common 
form in many parts of the world. 

Another class of explanations regarding the origin of 
exogamy may be called political. The intermarriages 
between the royal families in Europe fall into this cate- 
gory. Mohammed wrote, “Matrimonial alliances in- 
crease friendship more than aught else. Then will we 
give our daughters unto you and we will take your daugh- 
ters to us, and we will dwell with you and we will become 
one people.” ‘This might well apply were exogamy al- 
ways between distinct groups of peoples or tribes. Swan- 
ton, however, found among the Tlingit of the Northwest 
Coast, an informant who volunteered the information 
that his people, who were “Ravens,” married into the 
Wolf phratry “to show respect,” and he added that this 
was why they always obtained their assistance in con- 
ducting a funeral and invited them to a feast. Swanton 
writes, “Such a custom of exchanging courtesies having 
once arisen, it might in time have been thought the cor- 
rect thing to do, and marriage within the band have 
been first regarded as a mark of low breeding, and after- 
wards prohibited.” 7 

There is a magico-religious explanation for exogamy. 
The members of a group are regarded as having a mys- 
tical unity, based not alone upon actual consanguinity 
but upon fictitious ideas of kinship. Those belonging to 
clans of the same name, from different tribes, share this 
unity. Marriage is not allowed between members of a 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 165 


group united in this way. Durkheim considers that the 
occult or magical virtues attributed by primitive peoples 
to blood, especially the menstrual blood of women, would 
prevent men from having intercourse with those of the 
same blood, hence exogamy. Finally, Freud has a 
characteristic theory for tabu and exogamy. He be- 
lieves that society guards against the various com- 
plexes, especially those between father and daughter, and 
mother and son, by making rules of exogamy. 

If the regulations against incest were the same in all 
Savage communities, and incest was always interpreted 
in the same way, there would be little difficulty in arriv- 
ing at some solution of the problem of the origin of 
exogamy. But aside from the universal absence of mar- 
riage between parents and children, few generalizations 
regarding the prohibited degrees of marriage are pos- 
sible. There is even a confusion as to what constitutes — 
incest among civilized peoples. Marriage with the de- 
ceased wife’s sister, permissible only by dispensation in 
the Catholic Church, was made legal in Great Britain 
as late as 1907, and then only after the strongest opposi- 
tion. The marriage with a deceased brother’s widow is 
still prohibited in England. Marriages between uncles 
and nieces and between aunts and nephews are not pro- 
hibited in all Christian countries. The Eastern Church 
prohibits two brothers from marrying two sisters. There 
is often great inconsistency in the prohibited degrees of 
marriage in point of view of time and also in point 
of view of place. Even our state laws are not alike in 
this respect. Some marriages, such as those between 
first cousins, are regarded as incestuous in one state and 
may be entirely legal in another. 

In savage society the groups within which marriage 


166 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


is not allowed vary greatly. Although seldom the tribe, 
it may be the phratry or moiety, the clan, the village, 
housemates or some other social unit. It is impossible, 
therefore, to find any one reason why the conventions 
regarding incest are interpreted in so many different 
ways. Furthermore, laws against marriages between 
members of a group do not in every case prohibit sexual 
intercourse within the group at times of license. 


PREFERENTIAL MATING 


Among the same people one way of selecting a wife 
usually takes precedence over all others. This has been 
aptly called “preferential mating.” The levirate and 
sororate have already been described. The former, the 
marriage of the brother’s widow, is a custom very widely 
distributed. Cousin-marriage is by no means uncom- 
mon. It is usually a union between the children of a 
brother and a sister, called cross-cousins. In other words, 
a man marries the daughter either of his mother’s brother 
or of his father’s sister. Parallel cousins are the chil- 
dren of two brothers or of two sisters, and marriage be- 
tween cousins of this type is seldom found. In all these 
varieties of mating the unit is the enlarged family, the 
Grossfamilie, and as the marriage is between members of 
this group it may be said to be endogamous. There are 
many variations in cross-cousin marriage; it may be 
obligatory that first cousins, the children of a brother 
and of a sister, marry. It may, again, only be the pre- 
ferred method. More often the union is between cousins 
more distantly related than the first degree. 

Tylor has offered an explanation for the prevalence of 
cross-cousin marriage and the absence of union between 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 167 


parallel cousins. If the community is divided into two 
exogamous divisions, the children of a brother and a sis- 
ter would belong to different groups. With matrilineal 
descent the children of A and of his wife B would belong 
to group B. The progeny of B and of his wife A would 
belong to A. If the B’s were brother and sister, their 
children could marry, as they belonged to different 
groups. Whereas if A marries a wife B, their children 
will belong to B; and if A’s brother marries a wife also 
belonging to B group, their children are also B’s. Hence 
children of brothers cannot marry, as they belong to the 
Same group. This explanation has been questioned as it 
does not account for preference, so often found for first 
cousins over those more distantly related. Another dif- 
ficulty is the fact that cross-cousin marriage is found 
among people not organized in a dual exogamous system. 
Rivers offers a theory to cover his Melanesian data. It 
is based upon the assumption that originally the old 
men retained for themselves all the women available for 
marriage, but that later they surrendered their own 
daughters for the wives of their nephews. The en- 
dogamous character of cross-cousin marriage makes an 
explanation possible similar to that for the levirate, that 
marriage within the enlarged family is preferred in order 
to keep the property from going outside the group of 
kindred. This would not, however, serve to explain why 
a certain type of cousin relationship is preferred over 
another. Here, as in so many other instances, there is a 
phenomenon differing in details in such a way as to pre- 
clude a single origin. Convergent development from di- 
verse beginnings may have led to more or less similar 
results. 


168 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


MoTHER-RIGHT AND FATHER-RIGHT 


In the discussion of marriage, little was said concerning 
rules of descent and the residence of the married pair. 
The one-sided character of the family has been touched 
upon in the consideration of exogamy. The terms 
“mother-right” and “father-right” are often used to 
designate several different social processes. Descent, in- 
heritance of property, the law of succession of power, 
the holding of leadership, and residence are all features 
which ought to be carefully distinguished. Rivers, very 
aptly, limits the term descent to membership in the 
group. With a matrilineal system children belong to 
the same group as that of the mother. Inheritance, as 
here understood, has to do with property alone. In some 
cases, the descent may be in the female line and the in- 
heritance of certain kinds of property, especially land, 
may follow in the same line, but other possessions may be 
handed down through the father. We can thus have 
partial patrilineal inheritance with matrilineal descent. 

Succession to leadership and leadership itself should 
next be differentiated. The succession is often through 
the female line, but leadership is never held by a woman. 
In other words, a man may succeed to chieftainship 
through his mother’s side. Nowhere, as far as is known, 
do we find a true matriarchate, where the woman occupies 
the office of ruler. There are a few examples, often 
used, of communities in which the women have a great 
part to play in the life of the people and enjoy unusual 
property rights. The Pueblo peoples will be cited later 
in this connection. Among the Iroquois the women 
arrange marriages, hold property, nominate candidates 
for office, and have the power of “recalling” an unworthy 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 169 


chief; but no woman ever held the office of chief among 
these people or ever sat in the tribal council. Among 
the Khasi of India, the descent, inheritance, and succes- 
sion are matrilineal. The chief is succeeded by his 
brother or by the son of his eldest sister. This latter 
type of authority is commonly called the avunculate, 
the head of the group being the mother’s brothers. 
When a Khasi husband and wife have lived together 
for thirty or forty years, a second marriage rite is 
performed, after which no divorce is possible and no 
remarriage is allowed either the man or the woman 
after the death of one of them. After this ceremony, the 
husband becomes a member of his wife’s clan, taking her 
clan name, and his bones are buried with hers in her 
family vault. 

The question of descent and succession should be con- 
sidered in more detail. It was formerly held that, with a 
postulated promiscuity, the earliest families necessarily 
reckoned descent through the mother, as fatherhood could 
not be determined. This supposition also carries with it 
the theory that all peoples reckoning descent through the 
father have passed through a previous stage of mother- 
right. Rivers goes a step further and believes that in 
Melanesia, at least, and possibly throughout the world, 
the change from mother-right to father-right “came 
about through a process in which an earlier matrilineal 
society suffered great modification at the hands of immi- 
grant people imbued with patrilineal sentiments. These 
immigrants, being adopted as chiefs, were able to hand 
on their rank to their children, and thus to institute 
patrilineal succession.” *® In the same way, he thinks 
that matrilineal immigrants or conquerors may have 
imposed in some cases their social practices upon a 


170 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


patrilineal people. Characteristically, Rivers must 
always explain a new idea or a modification of an old 
one as coming from the outside. 

There is no definite order in the systems of reckoning 
descent. In general among the more highly developed 
tribes of North America the descent is counted through 
the mother, whereas patrilineal descent is found among 
the lowest of the tribes. Mother-right is not, therefore, 
necessarily a characteristic of the most primitive people, 
and, conversely, father-right is not always found among 
people whom we can place outside the class of savages. 

The Greeks reckoned descent through the father, but 
the Ionian Greeks had the Lycians as neighbors and they 
traced descent through the mother. ‘Olympian society 
was the same. The consort of Zeus held a very differ- 
ent position from that of the wife in a patriarchal house- 
hold; and on the Asiatic shore, at least, the gods them- 
selves were traced back to a Mother, not to a Father, 
of them all.”’® Even in the list of Roman kings, in 
contrast to that of the Alban rulers, not one of them 
was immediately succeeded by his son on the throne, 
although several left sons. One of them was descended 
from a former king by his mother and three of them 
were succeeded by their sons-in-law, who were all foreign- 
ers or of foreign descent.1° We note the prevalence of 
the fairy tale with the same story. Though the king 
has a son, it is the husband of the daughter who succeeds 
to the throne. A prince wanders into a strange land. 
After many vicissitudes he is successful in winning 
the hand of the king’s daughter, and succeeds her father 
on the throne. The former king’s son is journeying 
to another court and marrying a foreign princess. As 


Social Origins and Social Continuities Va 


Frazer remarks, early kingship is merely an appendage 
of marriage with a woman of royal blood. 

Not only do we find the foreign husband of the king’s 
daughter the ruler; but there is another type of succes- 
sion, where, again, the king’s sons do not succeed their 
father, but it is the son of the king’s sister who gains 
the throne. In both cases the succession is accomplished 
through the female side of the family of the king. In 
the Beowulf epic, Beowulf is the son of the sister of the 
king to whose court he was sent as aboy. It is clear that 
Beowulf is expected to succeed his mother’s brother, his 
maternal uncle, on the throne, although the king has a 
son of his own. Ballads about Arthur repeat the same 
idea. Roland was the nephew of Charlemagne. Marry- 
ing the queen on the death of the king was equivalent 
to a union with the king’s daughter. Both customs show 
that the royal essence was thought to flow through the 
female line. In the many tales of intrigue where the 
king is murdered and the murderer marries the queen, 
one is often cited—Hamlet. The murdered king is suc- 
ceeded, not by his son, though his son is of age to reign, 
but by the new husband of the queen. The people ac- 
cept the new king, never looking upon him as a usurper, 
and the marriage arouses no indignation. The only fear 
of the new king is that of the discovery of the murder 
by which he has gained possession of the queen and the 
acquisition of the throne. Julius Cesar adopted as his 
line of descent his sister’s daughter’s son, his grand- 
nephew.!? 

The maternal system of succession and descent carries 
with it, however, an inherent weakness when property 
comes into being. The person who holds rank and pos- 
sessions is usually the man, and it follows that where 


172 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


there is a matrilineal system the man cannot hand down 
his property to his sons. There is in this case a tendency 
to change the descent to the male line. Several cases can 
be shown, however, where even with the accession of 
property the descent still remains on the female side of 
the family. 

In a patrilineal society inheritance is easily explained. 
The law of primogeniture, the property falling to the 
eldest son, is a common phenomenon, especially in many 
of the nations of the Old World. The opposite of this, 
junior right, is a custom found rarely among civilized 
peoples, but it is not by any means unknown among 
primitive societies. This makes the youngest son 
the main heir. It is a common form of inheritance among 
many tribes in India. Rivers tells us that it is found 
among the Baganda, and is “due to the fact that as the 
sons of a family grow up and marry, they leave the home 
of the parents and build houses elsewhere. It is the duty 
of the youngest son to dwell with his parents and support 
them as long as they live, and when they die he continues 
to live in the parental home, of which he becomes the 
owner.” Junior right is thus commonly associated with 
the departure of the elder sons. 

This custom is also called Borough English, as it was 
found until recently in many parts of England. The 
name is taken from a local word used in a trial in the 
time of Edward III. In Nottingham there were, during 
that reign, two tenures of land, one called Borough 
English and the other Borough French. In the Borough 
English all the houses descended to the youngest son, but 
in the Borough I'rench they descended to the eldest son 
as in the common law. This custom was most prevalent 
in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, in a ring of manors en- 











Social Origins and Social Continutties 173 


circling ancient London. Blackstone wrote on this sub- 
ject, and regards the custom as a relic of Saxon liberty 
retained by such persons as had neither forfeited it to 
the king nor been obliged to exchange it for the more 
honorable but burdensome tenure of knight-service.1® 
There finally remains to be considered the question of 
residence of the married pair. This plays a surprisingly 
important part in early societies. The wife may take up 
her residence, temporarily or permanently, with her hus- 
band’s family; he may reside with his wife’s parents; or 
they may both remove to a new dwelling. The place of 
residence may depend upon several factors, the most im- 
portant of which is the line of descent. A tribe reckon- 
ing descent in the female line is generally found to be 
matrilocal, the husband living with his wife’s family ; 
although some may be patrilocal, the wife living with her 
husband’s family. Tribes counting descent on the male 
side are always patrilocal. No patrilineal peoples are 
matrilocal, but matrilineal peoples may be patrilocal. 
One of the most striking examples of matrilocal resi- 
dence is to be found among the Hopi and Zuni of the 
Southwest. The descent is on the mother’s side, and the 
house is the property of the women of the family, the 
grandmother, mother, and married daughters. The hus- 
band is considered a sort of privileged boarder in the 
house of his wife and her relatives. The head of the 
family is not the husband but the wife’s brothers. The 
husband occupies the first place, not in his wife’s home, 
but in the house of his sisters, and it is here that he keeps 
his personal possessions. It should be noted that even 
in this type with the descent and residence both in the 
female line, the heads of the family are not women, but 
the brothers of the wife. The children live under the 


174 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


guidance of their uncles rather than that of their father. 

The rules of residence and descent often carry with 
them a custom found sporadically over a great part of 
the world,—the parent-in-law tabu. The husband is 
usually “cut” by his mother-in-law. There may be a 
complete breach and all intercourse between the husband 
and his mother-in-law may be denied, or it may be sur- 
rounded by other restrictions. Many have been the ex- 
planations offered for this custom. Tylor, Frazer, and 
Freud all suggest reasons for the practice. It is prob- 
able that there is more than one cause to account for its 
presence. In general it seems to be due to the fact that 
the husband is regarded as a stranger from another di- 
vision of the tribe, an intruder, and is socially not recog- 
nized as a member of his wife’s family when he comes 
into the house of his parents-in-law. It is far more un- 
common to find the wife ostracized by the husband’s 
relatives. It is not a question of hostility, but only a 
failure to recognize socially. 

The inertia of customs and their failure to take root is 
by no means infrequent. This is illustrated in the South- 
west. Here are found the Pueblo peoples with matrilocal 
residence where one might well expect to find parent-in- 
law tabu, and it is entirely absent, although among the 
Navajo, who live in the midst of the Pueblos, it is present. 
I once had a Navajo man and his wife cooking for me 
incamp. An altercation occurred between them, and the 
girl returned to her mother’s hut. Deprived of her serv- 
ices, I endeavored to bring about a reconcilation. I was 
forced, first, to induce the girl’s mother to retire, before 
I could bring the man into his wife’s presence. Peace 
was made; the man left his mother-in-law’s house, and 
I then informed the concealed woman that the coast 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 175 


was clear and she could safely return to her hut, as her 
son-in-law had gone. 

The tabu, usually limited to sight and conversation, 
may be extended to include not only the names of the 
ostracized persons but the words composing the name 
used in any othcr connection. Lowie cites the anecdote 
of a Kirgiz woman of Asia. She could not look into the 
face of her husband’s father or elder kinsmen, and was 
forbidden to employ the usual words for lamb, wolf, 
water, and rushes, as they formed part of the names of 
her relatives by marriage. Accordingly, in telling her 
husband of a wolf carrying off a lamb through the rushes 
on the other side of the water, she was obliged to use cir- 
cumlocution and say, “Look yonder, the howling one is 
carrying the bleating one’s young through the rustling 
ones on the other side of the glistening one!” 

The following passage from Genesis, xxix, describing 
the marriage of Jacob, illustrates several points which 
have been discussed here: 

“And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the 
daughter of Laban his mother’s brother . . . that Jacob 
went near... And Jacob kissed Rachel ... And 
Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother 
(sic) . . . And it came to pass when Laban heard the 
tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, 
and embraced him . . . And Laban said to him, Surely 
thou art my bone and my flesh . . . And Laban had two 
daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name 
of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but 
Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved 
Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel 
thy younger daughter . . . And Jacob served seven years 
for Rachel . . . And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my 


176 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto 
her ... And it came to pass in the evening, that he 
took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and 
he went in unto her . . . And it came to pass, that in the 
morning, behold it was Leah: and he said to Laban, 
What is this thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve 
with thee for Rachel? wherefore then has thou beguiled 
me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our 
country, to give the younger before the first-born. lul- 
fill her week, and we will give thee this also for the serv- 
ice which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. . 
And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave 
him Rachel his daughter to wife also.” In Chapter xxx, 
after Rachel found that Leah was bearing children and 
none came to her, sho said to Jacob, “Behold my maid 
Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my 
knees, that I may also have children by her. And she 
gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went 
in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a 
son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath 
also heard my voice, and hath given me a son.” 

In these passages are found the customs of polygyny, 
cross-cousin marriage (Jacob being the son of Laban’s 
sister), and the sororate, the marriage of two sisters by 
the same man. The rule of seniority, not uncommon 
among primitive peoples, is also shown here, where the 
younger sister cannot marry before her elder sister is dis- 
posed of. The contract was by service, although a 
definite sum paid for the wifc was the usual practice 
among the Hebrews. Matrilocal residence during the 
long term of service is also described. Barrenness is an 
excuse for another partner, and yet, sociologically, Rachel 
was the mother of the progeny from this connection. 





Social Origins and Social Continuitties 177 


Finally, even after Jacob had served twenty years, four- 
teen for the two daughters and six for the cattle, he was 
not free to depart with his wives and children, and give 
up his matrilocal residence, according to the account in 
Chapter xxxi. 


In spite of the many curious ramifications of the mar- 
riage laws among primitive groups, it is clear that mar- 
riage was always 3 present in early 3 society. It is perhaps 
the only social institution that can be traced back di- 
rectly to man’s pre-human ancestors. 

There is, then, no single succession with stages leading 
from promiscuity through polyandry and polygyny to 
monogamy at the end of the series. Some of the lowest 
savages known are monogamous, and there is reason to 
believe that this form of marriage was the original type. 
The precise regulations of legal wedlock with the rules 
limiting the choice of mate and defining the form of con- 
tract between husband and wife all point to the fun- 
damental place marriage occupies in primitive life. It 
seems quite clear that marriage and its regulations 
among savage people are far more civil in character, 
that is, pertaining to society as a whole, than is the case 
with the rites at birth, adolescence, and death. The 
economic status of marriage comes out clearly, as a com- 
pact between groups quite as often as between indi- 
viduals. There are radical changes in the life of the 
man or woman, according as the one or the other takes 
up his or her residence in a strange family and is con- 
sidered often as an intruder. No correlation exists 
between stage of culture and rules of descent. Father- 
right and mother-right are both found among some of 
the highest and also among some of the lowest savages. 


178 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


If we should study our own ideas and feelings about 
marriage and the family in order to see how they differ 
from those accompanying the “irrational practices” of the 
savage, we would suddenly realize that the primitive 
family, with its paternal care, maternal devotion, and 
filial affection are heirlooms of a Primate-past worn 
with equal pride by the domesticated European and the 
wild Fijian. All the possible varieties of kinship associa- 
tion and conjugal relationships have been tested, tried, 
and developed by savages. 





CHAPTER V 
ORGANIZATION, ASSOCIATION, AND CLASSES 


Every society is divided into groups according to vari- 
ous principles and these groups are practically never 
mutually exclusive. The requisites for participation in 
the various forms of association differ. The term organi- 
zation is used to designate the fabric of those groups 
which commonly form the fundamental structure of 
early society, starting with the family and ending in the 
tribe or larger unit. Secondly, there may be a strati- 
fication along the lines of age, sex, or other fac- 
tors which form a group usually less fundamental than 
the preceding, and these have been called associations. 
Finally, a third division may be made, based primarily 
on rank, property, and occupation. These have been 
called classes. The interrelation of these three groups is 
often great, and the distinction is principally made for 
clearness in presentation. There is no hard and fast 
line to be drawn between any two of these three divisions. 

Rivers separates the various types of association into 
those the entrance to which is voluntary or involuntary. 
The family and its enlarged group is primarily, of course, 
an involuntary association, although adoption into a 
family may be voluntary. The political and religious 
units are also, for the most part, involuntary. The 
secret society and various clubs are in the voluntary 
class. But, as a matter of fact, the secret society is often 


179 


180 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


based upon an age classification, and social compulsion 
rather than individual volition usually determines the 
composition of these societies. 


SocIAL ORGANIZATION 


The domestic unit, consisting of the father, mother, 
and the children, and the way it is made up, have al- 
ready been treated. The first type of social organization 
larger than that of the family may be based upon locality 
alone. The enlargement of the domestic group, based 
upon ideas of kinship, real or fictitious, gives us a second 
type, the clan and other similar organizations. The po- 
litical grouping is a2 combination of either the first or 
the second type; local units formed more or less definitely 
into a tribe, or those based upon ideas of kindred, related 
clans or phratries forming a tribe. Organizations based 
upon the family as a unit are not explainable by biology, 
as Spencer would have us believe, but are sociologically 
constituted. An adopted member of a family is not a 
biological member of the group, but for all sociological 
purposes he may be as important a personage as one 
born within its folds. It should be understood that, 
given the family with or without plurality of husbands 
or of wives, the larger combinations do not follow auto- 
matically, one always preceding another in a definite 
order. 

Plato in his Laws writes, “For when a colony is of one 
race, and has the same language and the same laws, it 
possesses a kind of friendship as being a partaker in the 
same holy rites, and everything else of a similar kind. . .. 
But, on the other hand, a colony composed of all kinds 
of peoples flowing together to the same point, will per- 
haps be more willingly obedient to certain new laws; but 

















Social Origins and Social Continuities 181 


to conspire together, and like a pair of horses, to froth 
together, as the saying is, individually to the same point, 
is the work. of a long time and very difficult.” 

Giddings calls attention to the fact that this observa- 
tion of Plato clearly makes the distinction between the 
conditions found in primitive society and those in mod- 
ern communities." Those associations of one race, one 
language, one religion, and one set of customs, are con- 
trasted with groups composed of all “kinds of peoples 
flowing together to the same point.” In the first, one 
finds racial homogeneity, with a psychological and phys- 
ical unity and usually a strong sense of solidarity and 
tribal consciousness. The other group is not homogeneous 
and the sense of unity may be very imperfectly de- 
veloped. 

Herodotus gives us the same idea of unity among a 
people in his famous passage where the Athenians reject 
the plan of Alexander and refuse to desert the Greek 
cause. They reply, “Greece is of one blood; and of one 
speech; and has dwelling-places of gods in common, 
and sacrifices to them; and habits of similar customs.” 2 

These factors of “common descent, common religion, 
and common culture” are practically always present in 
savage society both in those groups based primarily upon 
territory as in modern states, and, as is far more com- 
mon, in those with a social organization founded upon 
kinship, “pseudo-biological” units. 


LocaL Groups 


It is usually assumed that in the lowest grades of early 
society small groups of related families wandered about 
as hunters or fishermen. There was no central authority 
and no great cohesion within the group. The social or- 


182 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


ganization lacked vigor, and there was little which could 
in any way be called political in these associations. A 
large amount of country was required for the needs of the 
different groups. There were no great crises and no great 
problems of adjustment to be settled. The Central 
Eskimo are a good example of this type of grouping. 

As Goldenweiser has said, locality is perhaps the first 
factor utilized for social organization. Not only is it the 
only feature present in the earliest types of social group- 
ing, but it is also found as the sole criterion in all modern 
communities. The home is not only a physical fact but 
a psychological one as well. However varied are the 
wanderings of the Eskimo or the Bushmen, they all have 
a dwelling place somewhere to which they periodically 
return. “Perpetual vagrancy is not a primitive phenom- 
enon.” ® Neighborhood grouping is a term which might 
be used for this type. Co-operation and mutual help- 
fulness are always found among members of the local 
group. 

The early village communities found in England, 
France, and northern Germany show some features 
similar to those of primitive organizations with geo- 
graphical unity. There were common fields, common 
pastures, common meadows, and common waste lands. 
Originally an equal number of acres was allotted: to each 
family; all stood on the same level. The distinction 
here, of course, is the presence of an overlord 


Kinsuip Groups 


Going back once more to the family as a nucleus, the 
second type of grouping is based upon ideas of kinship. 
This does not necessarily mean blood relationship, as 
adoption in common. Marriage brings about kinship, 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 183 


and there is often a fictitious kind of relationship with 
certain animal ancestors. The family found in thig 
type of organization is unilateral. Most modern families 
take their names from the father, and in this sense they 
are also unilateral. In Spanish countries, however, both 
the father’s and the mother’s names are used, and the 
family here can be called bilateral. 

In the kinship grouping not only the name but 
prerogatives, property, and other things are commonly 
inherited in one line only, according to the side of the 
family on which the descent is reckoned. If a society is 
patrilineal, as we have seen, the children follow the 
father’s line, and the mother is not always considered 
strictly a member of the social group. On the other 
hand, a father may be thought of as an outsider in a 
matrilineal unit. 


THe CLAN 


The group larger than the immediate family, reckon- 
ing descent either through the father or through the 
mother, is variously termed. The English, in general, 
and the French use the word clan. Lang and Frazer, 
however, prefer the word kin, and Rivers suggests sept. 
Lowie employs the term sib to designate this group. 
This is a convenient word, as it does not designate in 
which line the descent is rated. Most American an- 
thropologists limit the term clan to groups counting 
descent through the mother, and apply the term gens 
to those with inheritance in the male line. The word 
clan will be used here to designate this group, irre- 
spective of descent. 

In its lowest terms, the clan is a group of individuals 
related to one another either through the mother or 


124 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


through the father. Far distant cousins may be con- 
sidered in the relationship, and are regarded as members 
of the group. Again, the relationship may be purely 
fictitious, but from the social point of view this is as 
real a bond as that made by common blood. Few 
question the antecedence of the family over the clan. 
Although found among the Australians, the clan organi- 
zation is lacking among many of the lowest savages, as 
the northern Californian tribes, those in the interior of 
British Columbia, many in northeastern Asia, the 
Fuegians, the Andamanese, the Hottentots, and the 
Bushmen. But there is another question,—the priority 
of the clan and of the tribe. With the family as a 
nucleus, was there first a combination of related families 
into clans and thence an amalgamation of these into a 
tribe, or do we find first a heterogeneous community 
composed of several families, forming a more or Jess 
definite tribal unit that later split up into divisions such 
as clans? The latter is probably true. A tribe is seldom 
completely homogeneous. There is a potential force 
tending towards separation into groups, and there is no 
proof of the independent origin of these divisions. 

Many civilized peoples seem to have passed through 
a period of clanship as did the Greeks and Romans. It 
still persists as a social group among the Gaels of 
Ireland, northern Scotland, and the Isle of Man, the 
modern representatives of the ancient Celtic-speaking 
peoples. 

There is always a danger in precise terminology, as 
has often been shown, and this is clearly seen where any 
attempt is made to describe the typical clan. There 
are great variations in its functions; in the number of 
clans in a tribe, and the part they play in the tribal unit. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 185 


Even within a single continent there are the greatest 
differences in the clan pattern. Four and possibly five 
disconnected areas are found in North America, in each 
of which there are important differences in the functions 
of this sub-division of the tribe. 

Membership in the clan is hereditary, either in the 
male or female line. Blood relationship is the bond 
connecting all members of the group, and its origin may 
or may not be traced back to an animal ancestor. The 
clan possesses a name, often, but by no means always, 
taken from an animal or a plant. Exogamy is a con- 
sistent feature of the clan. Adoption of an outsider is 
by no means uncommon. The social solidarity is often 
shown by rules of blood revenge. It sometimes owns 
copyrights to special names, rites, dances, and songs. 
The clan has practically nothing to do with occupations, 
but it may sometimes hold property, primarily in land. 
It often has a political function, as will be shown later. 
Typical markings on the body, the dress, or the posses- 
sions of clan-mates are frequently found. This brings 
us to the connection between the clan and the various 
phenomena of totemism. 

Totemism is a convenient term which has been used 
to include a more or less definite set of practices of a 
social group centering around a supernatural relationship 
believed to exist between all members of the group on the 
one hand and a class of animals, plants, or material 
objects on the other. Goldenweiser thinks that the skele- 
ton of totemism is always a social system and, in a major- 
ity of cases, it is the clan organization® It should be 
added that sex totems and the individual totems or guard- 
ian spirits are varieties of totemism which are commonly 
distinct from the clan. Even totemism found primarily in 


186 Socral Origins and Social Continutties 


the clan organization is not a definite phenomenon, and 
no precise terminology is possible in defining it. It is 
composed of various “symptoms” which together make up 
a “totemic complex.” The most consistent feature is 
exogamy between the totemic groups; in most cases, 
made up of clans. Other symptoms which may or may 
not be present are names taken from animals or plants, 
descent from the animal or an intimate connection with 
it, the tabus against killing or eating the animal, the 
representation of the totem in design, and the religious 
rites connected with these ideas centering around totem- 
ism. An intensive study of the distribution of these 
different phenomena shows that stress is laid sometimes 
upon one group of symptoms and sometimes upon an- 
other. In Central Australia one of the main features 
of totemism is the attempt to increase the food supply 
through magical practices; in Africa great importance is 
placed upon the tabu; in North America clan totemism 
seems to be closely connected with, if not a development 
of, the individual totem or guardian spirit. The rep- 
resentation of the totemic animal is also present here. 
In the Northwest Coast the extraordinary development 
of conventionalized art is closely bound up with totemic 
ideas. It is often difficult to know where to draw the 
line between totemic and non-totemic features. Among 
the Iroquois clan exogamy and animal and bird names 
are the only features present. Many modern families 
have surnames of animals, birds, and fish, Representa- 
tions of these are often found on crests and other heraldic 
devices. Do these sometimes go back to a totemic be- 
ginning? It is impossible to say. Totemic tendencies 
are often found where it would be hazardous to state 
definitely that totemism is present. Marett writes that 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 187 


there is “glorious confusion of the subject of the social 
organization prevailing in what is conveniently but 
loosely lumped together as totemic society.” ® 


THe Puratry or Morery 


The next larger division than the clan is the phratry. 
Moiety is a better term when the tribe is divided into 
two subdivisions. These groups are far less common 
than the clans. Marriage is usually forbidden between 
members of the same moiety. There is a feeling of 
brotherhood between the members of clans associated 
together into a phratry or moiety. The functions of 
this division are even more difficult to define than in the 
case of the clan. In America, at least, reciprocal service 
at funerals and rivalry between the two moieties are the 
most common features. In Melanesia there is often 
actual hostility between the two units. There is seldom 
any political function in this division. 

The Omaha camping circle represents the spatial 
grouping of the social units, a living picture of the or- 
ganization of the tribe. During a buffalo hunt the six 
clans (more properly called gentes, since descent was in 
the male line) were arranged in a semicircle to the south 
of an imaginary line running east and west, these six 
gentes forming a moiety. To the north of the line an- 
other group of six gentes, forming the second moiety, 
completed the circle.7 

Rivers thinks that the dual organization, two moieties, 
represents the earliest type of social organization, and he 
bases one of his theories upon this assumption. The 
dual system is not by any means world-wide in distribu- 
tion. It is almost entirely absent from Africa and is not 
found among many American and Asiatic tribes. Rivers 


188 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


suggests that the moiety organization was the sole source 
of the classificatory system of relationship terms. As 
this method of nomenclature is found over a great part 
of the world, it must be inferred, if we accept this theory, 
that the two-class system was once far more widely dis- 
tributed than at the present time. There is no good 
reason to think that this is true. His theory seems to 
fit the data from Australia and Melanesia, but it does 
not appear to hold for the rest of the world. 


Tue TRIBE AND CONFEDERACY 


The tribal unit comes next. Here, again, the attempt 
at definition is difficult, as there are the greatest differ- 
ences in the character of tribes. We find that a common 
dialect, common customs, a more or less definite ter- 
ritory, and some form of government, are usually pres- 
ent. Tribes may be made up of village communities with 
no divisions into clans or moieties; they may have clans 
and no moieties, or moieties and no clans; or they may 
have both moieties and clans. There can be neither a 
definite rule nor a single line of evolution regarding these 
features. Tribal consciousness may be strong or weal. 
Hunting communities require little organization, but in 
agricultural centers some form of tribal solidarity is im- 
portant and is usually present. 

There is often the sharpest demarcation between the 
“We” group and the “Others” group, with a tribal unity 
carrying with it the corollary of hatred towards all out- 
siders. Ethnocentrism is a common spirit in tribal com- 
munities. The bond of kinship connecting all members 
of a clan or of a moiety is lacking in the tribe, but the 
psychical bond connecting all the members may be very 
strong. This is a special feature of early society, and is 


Social Origins and Social Continurties 189 


in contrast with the absence of this bond in modern 
states. Patriotism is almost the only common psychical 
feature felt in modern society, and everyone knows how 
difficult this was to arouse in this country, even in the 
crisis of the late War. Communal singing, mass meet- 
ings, “drives,” were artificial means taken to bring it into 
action. ‘Block parties’ have been devised by the social 
worker to stimulate a communal feeling of responsibility 
and increase the social solidarity of a group. College 
loyalty, and local loyalty,—which is so strongly devel- 
oped in the Western States,—are both smaller manifesta- 
tions of the same idea. Often our loyalties are far too 
provincial and aberrant. 

-The ethnocentrism of the savage may sometimes make 
itself felt within a group larger than the tribe, the con- 
federacy. This is uncommon, however. A loose and 
informal alliance to meet some specific danger may bring 
about a union of tribes. It is very seldom that a definite 
compact is found among primitive peoples. The famous 
Iroquois Confederacy is one of the exceptions. This 
was one of the most amazing examples of a representa- 
tive form of government ever evolved by uncivilized 
man. It has actually been in operation for over three 
centuries, beginning toward the last quarter of the six- 
teenth century and still existing to some slight extent. 
This will be referred to again. 


ASSOCIATIONS 


Up to this point social groups based either upon the 
idea of kindred or on that of locality have been described. 
There are associations among primitive peoples, where the 
cleavage is along other lines. The different groups may 
be made upon the basis of sex, of age, or of some other 


190 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


criteria. The segregation of the uninitiated from those 
who have passed through the elaborate ceremonials of 
initiation has already been discussed. This grouping 
may include the women as well as the boys who have 
not yet been taken formally into the tribal secrets. The 
men’s-house is another institution which is more or less 
clearly associated with the ideas centering around initia- 
tion. But there is a very real danger in trying to 
separate into distinct compartments these various forms 
of association: age groups based upon initiation, the 
segregation of the sexes, the men’s-house, and the secret 
society. They may be genetically related to each other 
among some people, or they may be different in function 
among others. In North America, for example, there is 
far less male segregation than is found in Australia and 
in Melanesia. 

The term “secret society” has been used to designate 
an important type of organization, the functions of which 
vary greatly. All the members of a tribe may be eligi- 
ble, or it may be limited to a small group of males. 
The tribe may be split up into a number of societies, 
rivals of each other. It may have important govern- 
mental functions, as in Melanesia, or it may be simply a 
social club. It may even degenerate into a band which 
spreads terror among the uninitiated and is not at all dis- 
similar to a secret organization present in our midst. 
There is, therefore, no necessary correlation between the 
various features usually found in associations grouped 
together for convenience and called secret societies. The 
element of secrecy itself may be lacking. Initiation into 
the society is a fairly constant feature, but initiation may 
also be a necessary prerequisite into certain occupations 
such as that of the priest or shaman. There is the samc 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 191 


danger in thinking of the secret society as composed of a 
definite series of phenomena as in the case with totemism. 
The symptoms of the secret society which will be treated 
here are those generally found in many of these organiza- 
tions in all the different grades of culture, from those of 
the savage to those of civilized man. 

In a secret there is something inherently interesting, 
and the fact of the social exclusion of those not pos- 
sessing it. The psychology of secrecy has never been 
thoroughly worked out. Some of the ordeals which 
the novice has to undergo on his initiation into the tribe 
have already been mentioned. As entrance require- 
ments into the secret society these rites of initiation, 
often consisting of fright and buffoonery, are a necessary 
part. There is, again, the wealth of symbolism, the 
sacred paraphernalia, and the elaborate regalia, seen for 
the first time by the noviciate. Parallels between the 
primitive and the modern secret society are found also 
in the various degrees in ascending order and in the sep- 
aration of the sexes. Even in our own civilization the 
secret society is essentially a man’s affair. The Grange, 
it is true, admits women, but the Odd Fellows have their 
Rebeccas and the Masons their Eastern Star. Both of 
these female organizations, however, are more or less dis- 
tinct from those of the men. In all our co-educational 
institutions the fraternities hold first place in the social 
life of the college with the sororities following far behind. 

The principle of fraternity and social solidarity, and 
the use of relationship terms, based upon purely ficti- 
tious ideas of kindred, still further strengthen the anal- 
ogy between the primitive and the modern world of 
secrecy. ‘Totemic features, tabus, and charms are addi- 
tional features frequently present in both cases, with the 


192 Social Origins and Social Continuties 


organization often taking its name from an animal or a 
bird, as the Elks, the Moose, the Buffaloes, the Eagles, 
and the Orioles. An important part of the ritual may 
center around this animal or bird, and the tooth or some 
other part or symbol of the animal may be a coveted 
possession. There is little doubt that the rise of the 
relatively modern secret society, more especially in 
America, is due to a “throwback” to earlier and more 
simple cultures. The drabness of some of our present 
conditions covets color, form, and symbolism. Honorific 
titles flatter, and elaborate raiment gratifies man’s craving 
for something he cannot have in everyday life. One 
writer has noted that the secret society is a glorified 
“method of ego enhancement.”® It was the man in 
primitive society, not the woman, who usually wore the 
gaudy headdresses and the elaborate costumes. The love 
of ritual and of mystery is world-wide in distribution, 
as regards both time and place. A secret is always 
something to conjure with. Someone has remarked that 
we find in modern fraternal organizations all the things 
we have ejected from our religion, and that our lodges 
are crowded while our churches are empty. The lan- 
guage and symbolism which is common to all mankind, 
to all creeds, and to all races, have been taken out of our 
religion and installed in the fraternal orders.2 The 
phenomena of the modern secret society are worthy of 
more attention and should be studied from the point of 
view of psychology. 


RANK AND SocraL CLASSES 


The third type of social stratification is based upon 
property and occupation, and less frequently upon birth. 
Rank is entirely absent in the lowest grades of early 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 193 


society. We shall see later, in considering government, 
that the monarchial systems found in Polynesia and 
in some parts of Africa are exceptional when taking 
the primitive world at large. Rank and the inher- 
itance of power are rarely found together. Polynesia 
is the most striking exception to this rule. In the lower 
stages of culture there is, in general, no such thing as 
a division into social classes. The difference inherent in 
persons is one of prestige only, and this depends prima-~ 
rily on personal ability and character. The savage is 
judged by his companions in the same way as we judge 
our fellow men. There is a social estimate made of 
the hunter, the fighter, the member of the council, the 
craftsman, and even the shaman or medicine man. The 
criteria for a high grade of estimation paid to an in- 
dividual differ according to the character of the com- 
munity and the nature of the need felt for superior 
ability. A good hunter may be a poor fighter, a brave 
warrior may be a bad councillor. Every man in his own 
milieu is classed as good or bad.?° 

There are several factors which may lead to differen- 
tiation of the social status: war, the development of 
property, occupations, and religion. From war and the 
capture of prisoners who are not put to death may come 
the development of slavery. But this is by no means 
inevitable, as we find in aboriginal America adoption 
into the tribe is often employed in the case of prisoners 
of war. Frequent hostilities may give rise to a warrior 
class. The acquisition of wealth may result in a social 
distinction between the rich and the poor. But property 
in land, in houses, and in food is very often held in com- 
mon by a clan or some other unit, and there is thus a 
check placed on the development of a class composed of 


194 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


the rich. Individual possessions may be limited to a 
man’s clothes and implements. 

From the division of labor in occupations may arise 
class distinctions. India is, of course, the best example 
of the caste system. In northern India this came to be 
based upon occupations, with no contact allowed among 
the different castes. In southern India, where there were 
many aboriginal peoples, the racial question was the 
main basis of the division into castes. In Polynesia spe- 
cial honor was paid to the canoe-builder; in Africa the 
smiths and metal-workers formed an endogamous unit. 
On the Northwest Coast, whales could be captured only 
by the chiefs, and there was often some classification in 
fishing for codfish and salmon. 

Religion may furnish a sort of centrifugal force that 
causes the development of a class of shamans or priests. 
But here again inheritance is only one of the factors in 
the choice of a medicine man. Personal ability, sug- 
gestibility, a neurotic nature, are more important criteria 
for the selection of a shaman. 

In North America there are only two regions where 
there has been any development of definite rank and 
social classes——among the Natchez of Mississippi and 
in the tribes of the Northwest Coast of British Colum- 
bia and southern Alaska. The peoples of this latter 
region are hunters and fishermen, with practically no 
development of agriculture, and yet we find a form of 
social organization, ideas of property, and social classes 
which are most commonly associated with peoples of a 
mode of life characterized by occupations higher than 
those of hunting and fishing. 

The Haida and Tlingit tribes of this coast conform 
in general to a single pattern,—a division into clans and 


Social Origins and Social Continurties 195 


these divided into two exogamic phratries.1!_ Each clan 
and each phratry are commonly named after an animal, 
a bird, or some supernatural creature. The tribes are 
also divided into nobility, common people, and slaves. A 
certain number of families are recognized as superior. 
Each of these has a tradition, quite distinct from the 
general clan legend and, by reason of it, each group 
has special privileges and the right to the use of certain 
crests. This tradition descends according to the cus- 
tom of the tribe, usually in the maternal line, and only 
one man in each family can impersonate his ancestor, 
who is responsible for the legend. These individuals 
form the nobility. The number is fixed and the fami- 
lies are not all equal in rank. They are graded in the 
same manner as their forefathers were supposed to have 
been ranked, and at all the festivals a precedence is 
strictly maintained. The legend states that the order 
of seating was given by a god at the festival of the 
tribes, when all the animals could speak. Members 
of the clan, with no special supernatural ancestors, 
formed the common people, and the slaves were usually 
captives in war or were purchased from neighboring 
tribes. They were not considered members of any clan. 

The whole basis underlying society in the North- 
west Coast is rank, the right to use certain crests, usu- 
ally an animal, bird, or some supernatural creature. 
These insignia are earved upon totem poles and on 
boxes, painted on the houses and on canoes, and some- 
times tattooed upon the face. 

The most interesting feature of the social system of 
these peoples is the potlatch. This word has the mean- 
ing “giving” or “a gift.” The feasts at which goods are 
exchanged come in winter. It is a system of interest- 


196 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


bearing investment and property, a regulated giving of 
presents, with the knowledge that gifts equivalent in 
value will be returned with interest at the end of a cer- 
tain length of time. The potlatch may occur when a 
child is given a name, at initiation, when the son takes 
his father’s seat in the council, at marriage, on the erec- 
tion of a house, or before a war expedition. 

The gifts are usually blankets, now a cheap white 
woolen affair. All values are measured in terms of this 
commodity. At a feast a certain number of blankets are 
distributed to those present. Everyone to whom they 
are offered is obliged to accept. The recipients are 
bound to repay these gifts at the end of a definite time, 
with interest. 

A boy receives a name when he is born, another when 
he is a year old, and a third when he has arrived at the 
age of ten or twelve. At this time he borrows blankets 
from other members of his family or clan. He must 
repay these within a year with 100 per cent interest. He 
distributes these blankets which he has had loaned to him, 
giving them to every member of the tribe, with a few 
more to the chief. Everyone to whom he has given the 
blankets makes a point of paying him within a month, 
and he receives 300 per cent interest on his gift; so that if 
he borrows one hundred at 100 per cent interest he has 
gained one hundred blankets in the transaction. At the 
end of the year he repays his debts at a festival in which 
he takes part for the first time. His father gives up his 
seat or place in the council which he has received in 
trust from his wife, to his son, to whom it rightfully 
belongs. 

It is thus a method of acquiring rank and prestige. The 
person who distributes the greatest number of blankets 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 197 


and gives the most sumptuous feast is held in the high- 
est favor. If the recipient cannot return the compli- 
ment by giving a greater feast and repay the blankets 
with interest, he loses prestige in the eyes of the com- 
munity, One can get the better of a rival by presenting 
him with more blankets than he can possibly return with 
interest, and the rival is vanquished. The system re- 
minds one strongly of the attempts in modern society 
to gain prestige by the splendor of the entertainment. 

Rivalry between chiefs and clans may show itself in 
the destruction of property. A chief will burn many 
blankets or a canoe in honor of a rival. If the latter 
cannot destroy an equivalent amount of property, his 
name is “broken” and his influence is diminished. If a 
man starts out to battle he will give away all his prop- 
erty, knowing well that, even if he does not return, his 
family will receive full value with interest from these 
gifts. It is a method of thrift and insurance, as well 
as a means of increasing one’s standing in the tribe. 
This unique feature of acquiring rank has been described 
at length in order to show the presence of a kind of 
sophistication regarding property and social position, 
even among non-agricultural people. 


Savage society seldom becomes stereotyped. The 
“glorious confusion” on the social side of primitive man 
simply shows his ability at adaptation to the varied 
conditions as he meets them. He has more rites, more 
customs, more secret societies, more religions, greater 
intensity of emotional states, greater feelings of blood 
and social solidarity, and perhaps more confidence in the 
future than has civilized man. On the other hand, the 
savage has fewer inventions and less property, fewer 


198 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


wars and fewer diseases, fewer satisfactions and fewer 
wants. The savage is poorer in thoughts, but, at the 
same time, he is poorer in worries. We shall see in the 
next chapter that he is poorer in the complicated ma- 
chinery of government and in government officials. 


CHAPTER VI 
GOVERNMENT, LAW, AND ETHICS 


In treating the social organization of early society a 
distinction was made in the character of social groups, 
between those with a loose and those with a firm type 
of structure. At the same time a contrast was indicated 
between societies composed of ‘all kinds of peoples flow- 
ing together” and those made up of one people, with the 
same language, the same customs, and the same religion. 
Where these common ties are augmented by the bonds 
of kinship there is the firmest possible type of associa- 
tion,—physically, socially, and mentally homogeneous. 
Government, also, is bound to vary within wide extremes. 
Maine was the first to make clear the difference in gov- 
ernmental functions in societies based upon kinship and 
in those based upon territory. Even in a community 
where blood relationship has a prominent place, a form 
of control independent of any kinship bonds may be 
found. 

The most common type of early government is a 
democracy, with the power held by the elders or by a 
council selected by the people. One-man rule is almost 
entirely absent in the most primitive communities. Mor- 
gan goes so far as to state that monarchy is incompati- 
ble with the clan grouping and that it is only to be 
associated with those people having phonetic writing 
and literary records. This is much too sweeping a state- 

199 


200 Social Origins and Social Continurties 


ment, as monarchy is found among some uncivilized 
peoples. There is thus no definite and constant corre- 
lation between scale of culture and form of government. 

There is the greatest contrast in this respect between 
aboriginal North America and Africa. In the former, 
with one or two prominent exceptions, the form of gov- 
ernment is essentially democratic, whereas in Africa the 
trend is toward a monarchy. In Polynesia the govern- 
ment is distinctly despotic in form, with almost a feudal 
state built up around ‘the rulers. Those in authority 
belong to a class so sacred and so well protected by tabu 
from all contact with the common people that it was 
impractical for them to lead war parties. We thus find 
in parts of New Guinea and in Polynesia a dual chief- 
tainship, the highest chiefs, completely isolated from the 
common life of the people, and the war chiefs, whose 
duties consisted of leadership in war and carrying out 
the orders of those belonging to the other class of rulers. 
All this illustrates a point which has been made before, 
that patterns of culture often differ among peoples in 
the same general stage of development, and these pat- 
terns may or may not be conterminous with great con- 
tinental areas. ; 

The three departments of government—the legislative, 
the executive, and the judicial—are usually so bound to- 
gether that it is often impossible to separate them. A 
tribal council may make and execute laws, as well as 
punish the violators of these laws. As Lowie remarks, 
“The legislative function in most primitive communities 
seems strangely curtailed when compared with that exer- 
cised in the more complex civilizations. All the exigencies 
of normal social intercourse are covered by customary 
law, and the business of such governmental machinery as 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 201 


exists is rather to exact obedience to traditional usage 
than to create new precedents.” This statement would 
not hold as true for Africa or Oceania as for other parts 
of the world. 


Tue Iroquois CONFEDERACY 


The development of government along strictly demo- 
cratic lines is best seen in the famous Confederation 
of the Iroquois.1 This was really a League of Nations, 
all members, however, speaking different dialects of the 
same language. The organization of the League was 
perhaps the best example of a representative form of 
democratic government ever evolved by primitive man. 
The Iroquois first became known to the white man in 
1534. About 1675 their dominion reached over the 
greater parts of the present states of New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, and portions of Canada, north of Lake 
Ontario. They formed an island in the midst of ter- 
ritory occupied by their enemies, the Algonkin peoples. 

The Iroquois tribes were formerly independent bod- 
ies, but much of this unity was lost in the formation 
of the League. The tribal council was composed of a 
certain number of chiefs elected by the various clans. 
Each tribe was divided into two moieties which were 
at one time exogamous. These were in general ceremonial 
units, having to do with funerals. Each moiety was 
subdivided into four or more clans, with maternal 
descent, the property always remaining in the clan, and 
there were reciprocal obligations involving blood re- 
venge. Each clan was named after an animal or bird, 
but there was no tabu attached to killing or eating these 
animals, and little or no reverence paid to them. 

Each clan had a set of names to be used by its mem- 


202 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


bers, and each had the right to adopt strangers. There 
was clan exogamy, and this was extended to include 
clans of a similar name in other tribes. Members of 
the Seneca-Wolf clan could not marry those from the 
Onondaga-Wolf clan. Each clan had a common burial 
place. Each of these groups was subdivided into a 
number of maternal families, the smallest unit of the 
tribe. Every family was presided over by a matron, and 
included all her male and female relatives. The family 
had certain ceremonial functions and hereditary pre- 
rogatives, and the family of a chief had the right to nom- 
inate his successor. Both men and women had a voice 
in all proceedings. We can thus think of an Iroquois 
tribe as a series of concentric circles,—the tribe, the 
two moieties, the four or more clans, and the two or more 
maternal families composing the clan. A larger circle, 
containing all the five and, later, six tribes composed 
the Confederacy. A common heritage, common customs, 
common religion, and contiguous territory prepared the 
ground for federation. 

The League was not in existence when Cartier met the 
Iroquois in 1534, but it was in full operation on the 
arrival of Champlain in 1603. It was probably founded 
not earlier than 1570. Tradition states that a council of 
wise men and chiefs of the five tribes met on the north 
shore of Onondaga Lake near the present site of Syracuse. 
The main force behind the alliance was the common 
danger from the encircling Algonkin tribes. The origin 
of the idea is ascribed to a traditionary person, the Hia- 
watha of Longfellow, who was present, and disappeared 
in a white canoe after the plan was formulated. He 
was assisted by a wise man of the Onondagas. There 
seems little doubt that the credit for this marvellous 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 203 


piece of legislation belongs to one man, whoever he may 
have been, a genius for political organization. 

The original five tribes—the Mohawks, the Oneidas, 
the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas,—occupied 
contiguous territory, spoke mutually intelligible dialects 
of the same language, and had certain clans common 
in all the tribes. Here at once was a stratification 
cross-cutting the tribal units. The Bear clan of one 
tribe affiliated, psychologically at least, with the Bear 
clan of another tribe. Early in the eighteenth cen- 
tury the Tuscaroras, who originally had lived far to the 
south, were adopted as the sixth member of the Fed- 
eration, which became known as the “Six Nations.” 

The general features of the League can only be out- 
lined. Each tribe was to remain independent in all 
matters of local concern. Fifty chieftainships were cre- 
ated and named in perpetuity in certain clans of the 
five tribes. It should be pointed out that the word 
chief in this case connoted no individual power as the 
head of any one group. Representative is a far better 
term for these chiefs or sachems who formed the Council 
of the Federation. An unanimous vote in the Council 
was necessary, and each tribe voted as a unit, yes or no. 
It was necessary, therefore, first for the chiefs of the 
tribe to agree before their single vote could be cast, and 
then all the Council had to agree before a motion could 
be passed. In any organization where measures have 
to be passed unanimously, the majority usually coerce 
the minority, and it is really majority rule: an important 
step in the development of government and only occurring 
in a stabilized society. 

The official functions of the fifty chiefs were not nu- 
merous. Among these was the right to decide on peace 


204 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


or war and power over all inter-tribal agreements and 
alliances with other tribes. When a chief died the 
matron of the family to which he belonged determined 
upon his successor. This was usually a maternal nephew 
or younger brother, almost never a son. She called a 
meeting of the family for ratification of her choice. To 
this the other members of the same clan were admitted. 
Then she chose a delegate to communicate her choice 
to the chiefs of brother clans (the moiety), who could 
veto or approve. This delegate in turn called upon the 
chiefs of the cousin clans (the other moiety). After 
approval by them, the name of the candidate was pre- 
sented to the Council of the Chiefs, and they could ap- 
prove or reject. If agreement was reached, the candidate 
was raised to chieftainship in a great inter-tribal festival. 

The position of chief was practically hereditary in 
the family, and he. held office for life or during good 
behavior. He could be “recalled” for conduct unbe- 
coming a chieftain,—neglect of duty, evil temper, in- 
temperance, or a friendly attitude towards the enemy 
Sioux or Algonkin. This “recall” might be initiated by 
the matron. Two warnings were required and, finally, 
if the chief’s conduct still remained unsatisfactory, she 
was accompanied on the third visit by another chief, 
who handed her the “deer horns,” the symbol of power 
of the deposed chieftain. This action had finally to be 
ratified by the Council. The power of the matron is 
seen throughout these proceedings. The Council had 
also the power to depose without any move being made 
by the matron or by the clan. Any individual had the 
right to present matters for the consideration of the 
Council. 

It can be seen that this Council of Chiefs rested 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 205 


ostensibly on the tribes, but in reality on a single family 
in a single clan. All members of the same clan, whether 
Mohawks, Oneidas, etc., were theoretically brothers and 
sisters, and they recognized each other as such. Three 
of the clans, the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle, were common 
to all five members of the Confederation. 

In some of the tribes one of the chiefs was recognized 
as its head during the time when the tribal Council was 
not in session, but the duties and powers of the office 
were not great. Under the Confederacy a distinct need 
for an executive officer was felt, especially in time of 
war, and this office was created in dual form, the oecu- 
pants of which were called the two “great war soldiers.” 
They were chosen in the same way as the chiefs, and 
assigned to two distinct clans of the Seneca, as they 
held the position of greatest danger. The late appear- 
ance of a central authority is worthy of note in the 
development of the governmental organization of the 
Iroquois. 

In this rapid survey of a successful confederation we 
can note several features of interest: 


The desire for peace overcame tribal jealousies; 
The Council was a servant of the people; 

It was virtually elected by universal suffrage; 
Mer.{ determined its membership to a great extent; 
The power of the recall was present; 

The initiative and referendum also had a part. 


Pore fo 


In other words, we find a representative form of demo- 
cratic government, a commonwealth of nations. 
Before leaving this account of the League of the Iro- 
quois, mention should be made of the part it played in 
the early history of the country. “It was an evil hour 
for Canada,” writes Parkman, “when, on the twenty- 


206 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


eighth of May, 1609, Samuel de Champlain . . . departed 
from the hamlet of Quebec to follow a war-party of 
Algonquins against their hated enemy, the Iroquois.” 
The French and Algonkins were at first victorious and 
their enemy fled in confusion. ‘The Iroquois recovered 
from their terrors, but never forgave the injury.” Thence- 
forth, as surely as the Algonkins sided with the French, 
the greater part of the Iroquois fought for the English 
throughout the border warfare, and the failure of the 
French to hold Canada is due—in part, at least—to 
the aid rendered the British by the Iroquois League. 
At the beginning of the American Revolution, the Con- 
federation declared neutrality, and the separate tribes 
were left free to take sides. The Oneidas and some 
of the Tuscaroras embraced the American cause. 
The Mohawks established themselves in Canada, and 
the Cayugas followed, taking with them valuable 
wampum. The latter tribe further alienated the 
regard of the Iroquois in the United States by taking 
the British side in the War of 1812. The League had 
been more or less formally disbanded about 1800, but the 
skeleton of the organization still persists. The Cayugas, 
long ostracized by the Iroquois living in the United 
States, and not granted representation in the Council of 
Chiefs, were allowed, after many persistent efforts and 
the payment of wampum, to take their former seats in 
the council. This happened as late as 1923. The pres- 
ent head of the Cayugas has a document dated 1784, a 
treaty of alliance with George III, made with the Six 
Nations of the Iroquois in Canada, and granting them 
independence and the protection of the British Govern- 
ment. During the late World War the Cayugas declared 
themselves allies of the British. The independence of 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 207 


the Canadian Iroquois has been sadly interfered with 
of late, and the Cayuga chief, by virtue of the treaty 
of 1784, attempted to present their grievances to Geneva 
in August, 1923, but the petition was not accepted. Thus 
we find a League of Nations of the sixteenth century 
aprealing to another League of Nations of the twentieth 
century. 


SoctlaAL ORGANIZATION OF THE INCAS 


As a contrast to this type of democratic government 
of the Iroquois, let us consider quite another form, that 
of the Incas of Peru.2 Throughout the Andean high- 
lands there were innumerable tribes consisting of one or 
more patrilineal families. In most cases the jurisdiction 
of a tribe was conterminous with the valley in which it 
was situated. The amount of arable land was greatly 
limited by nature, and each year the tribal leaders as- 
signed to heads of families parcels of land. The great 
work of the Incas was that of leaguing together scores 
of these tribes, formerly independent of one another, and 
forcing them to submit to one supreme authority, the 
Inca. 

To appreciate just how much credit should be given 
to these ancient Peruvians for this consolidation, one 
should bear in mind the fact that, when their career 
began, the Incas themselves were a tribe in no wise dif- 
ferent from scores of others. Gradually they formed a 
confederation of tribes, and finally established one em- 
pire. As their power grew, they changed gradually from 
an humble tribe to a ruling one; and finally into a 
dynasty. In the last years of the empire, the ruler, 
called the Inca, was a supreme lord, and his government 


208 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


investigated and controlled every activity of every in- 
dividual in all the dominion. 

All were classified on the basis of the amount of 
work he or she could do for the common welfare. Each 
individual began life as a mosoc caparic—“‘babe in 
arms.” Later he or she became a saya huwamrac—“able 
to stand”; then a fledgling, “under six.” From six to 
eight he was a “bread receiver’; from eight to sixteen, 
“one who needs light work’; from sixteen to twenty, 
a “cocoa-picker”; from twenty to twenty-five, “almost 
a man’; from twenty-five to fifty, a puric—“able bod- 
ied,”—and thus the head of a family and a payer of 
tribute; from fifty to sixty, he was a “half old man”; 
and, finally, from sixty on, “an old man asleep.” 

This paternal supervision of everything brought about 
the so-called camayoc system. There was an official in 
charge of ten families, and others in charge respectively 
of fifty, one hundred, and one thousand, and an overseer 
of them all. The general jurisdiction of these officers in- 
cluded the duty of seeing that no one suffered want; 
that everyone, except the exempted classes, worked; and 
that tribute, often in the form of labor, was paid. 

The functions of this involved officialdom were mani- 
fold. Their activities and duties had to do with every 
detail of private and social life. There were officials for 
pathways, bridges, taverns, irrigation canals, the herds 
of llamas and alpacas, and the quipus, as well as priests 
for the complicated ritual of the worship of the sun. 

As time went on, the social sophistication of the Incas 
increased, and we find an hereditary aristocracy. The 
custom of incestuous marriage was the product of an 
ever-increasing class-consciousness on the part of the 
Incas themselves. As in Egypt, the blood of the ruling 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 209 


class was too precious to be mixed with that of a lower 
grade, and brother-sister marriage was the result. We 
see here a sort of monarchical socialism. The state pro- 
vided the food, drink, and shelter, the amusements, and 
the religion. There are several features here which re- 
mind one of those found in a famous contemporary ex- 
periment in government. 


AFRICA AND THE KABYLE DEMOCRACY 


- Many other examples of highly centralized authority 
might be cited, from Africa and Oceania. The African 
despots often ruled over large areas, but the course of 
political history here was “fluctuating and capricious.” 
A mighty ruler today might lose his position by some 
great personality coming to the front and gaining the 
seat of power. Sometimes the African chief was simply 
the rain-maker, and had no governmental functions 
whatsoever. The Zulu headman had great secular power 
and was a mighty ruler in every respect. But there 
are democratic institutions found even in Africa. The 
Kabyles, a Berber people of the mountains of the 
Mediterranean littoral, have a simple and democratic 
form of government.2 Wherever the Berbers have 
escaped foreign domination, they have organized into 
small republics, grouped into federations with the village 
as the unit. Each community makes its own laws and 
executes them by means of an assembly of citizens. The 
decisions of this council are sovereign, and are restrained 
only by tradition. Every citizen has a voice in the 
assembly. This body appoints a police, arrests, main- 
tains order, and also has the mosque under its jurisdic- 
tion. All except the secretary of the council serve with- 
out remuneration and sometimes even at great expense. 


“210 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


There is an interesting institution that plays a major 
but unofficial part in the community. In fact, the whole 
fabric of Kabyle society is built around the cofs. ‘There 
are always two, based upon locality or upon interests, 
and they are in every case deadly rivals. The leaders 
of the cofs are the most powerful individuals in the 
community. Like the modern political boss, he holds 
no Office and his position has no legal background. Dis- 
loyalty to the cof is considered the basest of all crimes, 
although bribes are often offered by one cof to members 
of the other. There is constant friction between the two. 
They are not at all unlike our two major political 
parties, although definite principles are not promulgated 
by either side. 

Government in many parts of Polynesia has another 
pattern. Here pedigrees and genealogies play a very 
great part, and we find a strong development of nobles, 
commoners, and slaves. But even here the greatest 
patricians are not always at the head of the government. 
One writer likens the Maori and Samoan system “to a 
state of barons granting precedence to the ruler of their 
choice but without allegiance and reserving to them- 
selves the ultimate voice in matters of government.” 
In Hawaii and many of the other islands there was 
“monarchial despotism.” 

Enough has been given to show the wide range in the 
forms of government. Risking a general statement, it 
may be said that the council of elders was the commonest 
form of authority in primitive society. Deliberation 
and discussion were the most important features of this 
council. In the New World, with a few exceptions, the 
council was the government. The same was true in 
Australia, where the old men ruled—a gerontocracy. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 211 


The absence of a central authority is noteworthy in both 
these regions. . 

The different forms of government thus range all the 
way from absolute authority vested in one man, through 
those where leadership is held by one or two persons 
with powers limited by a council, to communities ruled 
by a council alone with no central authority, and, finally, 
to the most informal kind of body made up of the elders 
or of persons of wealth and position. Even where an 
hereditary class is found, there is often lacking all 
functions usually associated with chieftainship. This 
class may be leaders in war alone, or in religion, or they 
may have purely social functions such as the giving 
of feasts. 

The layman usually thinks of the savage as ruled by 
chiefs. Fallacious ideas of royalty, based upon 
European standards, crept into the writings of the first 
whites to describe primitive peoples. Emperors, kings 
and queens, princes and princesses, must rule. Demo- 
cratic government and an elected council were incompre- 
hensible to the European mind of that time. This 
incorrect interpretation of the legal forms among the 
American Indians led to great confusion. The early 
colonists assumed that every village and tribe had a 
chief with a prerogative enabling him to sign away 
various rights, and to negotiate the sale of land. These 
powers were not held by individuals, and land held in 
common by a tribe or a clan could not legally be sold. As 
Rivers notes, European contact in Melanesia and in 
Africa actually developed a form of government with 
definite authority unknown before. 

Since economic homogeneity, found in many primitive 
communities, implies social homogeneity and, to some 


212 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


extent, a relative lack of development of individual 
initiative, and since social homogeneity implies equality 
of ability, the implication of equality of ability carries 
with it the principle of democracy. This may explain the 
presence of democratic institutions among the lower 
grades of savage life. 


DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP 


It has already been stated that man’s development as 
a social being is consequent to and correlated with 
the superior brain and superior intelligence of proto-man. 
The insignificance of his physical equipment for offen- 
sive and defensive combat in relation to the other ani- 
mals has also been pointed out. There is thus an 
impossibility of his dominance over animals by physical 
force. This applies quite as well to dominance over 
his fellow men. The leaders in early society are such 
by nature of resourcefulness, initiative, and superior 
intelligence. We have found this superior intelligence, 
and hence authority, attributed to the elders by virtue 
of age and experience. Among a council of the old men 
there is always dominating authority conceded to the 
most able and resourceful, the most intelligent, who is 
often the most acquisitive and hence the most wealthy. 

The theory of the ““man-horde,” and the argument that 
it is led by the solitary male who has the greatest 
brute force cannot hold. The physical insignificance of 
the individual prevents this. There is also an easy 
negation of individual physical prowess by co-operative 
action. This brings into contrast once more the differ- 
ence between animal and human societies. Among 
animals the most capable physically are usually the 
ones which exert their will upon others of their kind; 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 213 


among men, the most capable mentally are the leaders. 
The tendency to lead is present in both, but the criteria 
of selection differ. 

The rudiments of authority are to be found in the 
family. In a patrilineal group the domination of the 
father is a simple matter, but in a matrilineal family 
authority is far more complicated. It may be shared 
equally between the father and the mother’s brothers, 
or be limited to the maternal side of the family to the 
complete exclusion of the father. The cohesion of the 
family group, however it is made up, is far greater than 
that seen in modern society. In some countries, notably 
in. France, the importance of the family council still 
persists. In groups larger than the family, leadership is 
at first based only upon an informal respect paid to the 
elders or to especially gifted individuals. If a crisis 
appears, someone steps forward with a suggestion. If 
this idea, on being carried out, results in success, prestige 
comes to the instigator. A precedent is established of 
listening to this man. The importance of the crisis in 
the development of a leader is thus shown to be great 
in this respect. The late War produced several striking _ 
examples of this. The power of personality ought not 
to be overlooked in early society. We speak today 
of natural-born leaders. In Polynesia personality was 
another name for mana, a force emanating from certain 
individuals. This power was sometimes nothing more 
than a compelling personality. In many cases, of course, 
this influence was inherent in the office of priest or ruler, 

There are different criteria used in the selection of a 
leader. When the life of a community centers around 
some occupation, prestige depends upon aptitude, and 
we may have guilds. In a hunting society, the best 


214 Social Origins and Social Continuitties 


hunter may be at the head. In a tribe often at 
war, the best warrior has great prestige in the decisions 
of the council. If this leader is again successful, his 
prestige is heightened and he may be started on the 
road to a properly elected chief. The council is usually 
present as a check upon those actions of the leader 
which do not meet with the approval of the elders. The 
submission of the common lot to the will of the superior 
is always inherent in society. Obedience may become a 
habit. The religious factor often comes in to play a part. 
The leader may have a strong supernatural sanction 
behind his actions, which further strengthens his hold 
upon the populace. All peoples are prone to adore their 
heroes. This adoration may pass into hero-worship 
after death. 

Among the northern Maidu, one of the lowest peoples 
in North America, the head of the simple village was 
chosen by the aid of a shaman and he could be deposed 
by the same means. His functions were mainly advisory, 
but a man with ability and wealth could make the office 
one of great power.* The influence of a chief was often 
heightened by wealth and monopoly in some trade. 

We thus see a primary dominance of the superior 
individual through intelligence often aided by both ma- 
terial and immaterial factors. He may have invented 
new forms of implements or more useful ways of utiliz- 
ing the products of nature, and the accumulation of a 
surplus food supply. This brings him wealth, an extra 
store of food gives him leisure which facilitates specula- 
tion and experimentation with natural phenomena. A 
superior comprehension of the working of nature elevates 
the intelligent individual from an amateur practitioner 
to a scientist, from a trafficker in the supernatural, to a 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 215 


priest, a god-king. So the immaterial and material suc- 
cess feed upon one another to their mutual aggrandize- 
ment. 

The development of individual dominance through 
warlike prowess is usually found only among more 
highly developed peoples. The despot is unknown in 
the most crude societies. The implications of organized 
warfare are an advanced technology and a develop- 
ment of effective weapons. The motives behind organ- 
ized warfare are advanced notions of property both real 
and personal. A relatively high social organization and 
a group spirit making possible military co-operation are 
usually present, together with an advanced economic 
status. This is correlated with a relative freedom of 
the warrior class from the necessity of seeking food and 
with the subjugation of a servile laboring class whose 
main duty is the cultivation of the fields. This should 
not cause us to overlook the efficacy of the magico- 
religious measures employed against enemies which may 
be far superior to ineffectual physical means. 

In this attempt to trace some aspects of the evolution 
of the leader and chief, Rivers’ theory should be noted. 
He thinks that the strong basis of group sentiment in 
the government of early societies changes to that of in- 
dividual authority by the advent of a race of rulers, 
“enterprising strangers,” imposing their ideas upon a 
community and becoming chiefs. He bases this opinion 
upon the fact that chiefs usually have customs peculiar 
to themselves, frequently with a similarity between the 
functions of chiefs in different societies widely separated. 
He points out that in Oceania there is often a difference 
in the physical appearance between chiefs and common- 
ers, “the former approaching more nearly the Caucasian 


216 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


type.” There is no doubt that one cause of this differen- 
tiation was the inbreeding which went on in the higher 
ruling class, causing an accentuation of certain physical 
characteristics. He does not explain how this chief-race 
came itself to develop ideas of leadership. These highly 
endowed immigrants, not only distributed ideas of ruling 
but many of the other features which we have been dis- 
cussing. This author and others of his school deny the 
possibility of a people in situ, as it were, initiating new 
customs.° Changes must always be introduced by an 
intruding people. 


Law 


Primitive jurisprudence, just as modern law, is not 
force, nor is it morality. It is simply custom codified 
by public opinion. Law has been defined as “any social 
rule to the infringement of which punishment is by usage 
attached.” ® Unwritten codes are often as standardized 
and always as binding as rules enacted by some law-giv- 
ing body. One part of our present jurisprudence is noth- 
ing more than custom and tradition, often sanctioned by 
religion, made definite and perfected by record. Our 
statutory law, however,—in so far as it is the expres- 
sion of the will of a ruler or of some other governing 
body—is another thing. This type is far less well devel- 
oped in the legal system of the savage. Several writers 
have made clear the fact that in primitive jurisprudence 
there is a far fuller development of criminal law than of 
civil law. “The regulation of personal relations by the 
status of the individuals, the administration and in- 
heritance of property within the family according to 
customary law, and the absence of contracts between 
individuals adequately accounts for the diminutive part 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 217 


played by civil jurisprudence as compared with penal 
law.” 7 

There is often a complete absence of a central author- 
ity constantly on watch to detect criminals and other 
wrong-doers. The frequent absence of any definite body 
whose duty it is to administer justice and to mete out 
punishment should be noted. A “spontaneous character” 
is found in the administration of justice. The power 
that enforces law is often an impersonal one. The sav- 
age is taught from boyhood that a departure from cus- 
tom is always accompanied by some evil befalling the 
culprit. Transgressions against the gods are summarily 
dealt with by the gods themselves. Many phases of 
primitive law are based upon a desire to restore a peace 
with the gods. Public opinion, the desire to stand well 
in the community, and the fear of ridicule, are all factors 
tending to a rigid enforcement of law. Social ostracism 
is also a strong deterrent of crime. 

The beginnings of law are to be found in the idea of 
revenge. A member of a clan is murdered, and not only 
his fellow kinsmen but the ancestral spirits as well de- 
mand a life in return. The solidarity of any group in 
any society at any time or in any place may be so great 
that blood revenge is demanded. The city gang, the 
Southern “cracker,” the Italian Camorra, the Corsican 
Vendetta, the Chinese Tongs, often institute this type 
of punishment. Blood revenge carries with it the 
principle of joint-liability or collective responsibil- 
ity. The actual murderer is not necessarily sought out, 
but an injury done to any member of the group to which 
he belongs will satisfy the need for revenge. As it is 
the group quite as much as the individual who has suf- 
fered the loss, so it is the group and not the individual 


218 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


who must avenge the wrong. In the same way, it is the 
group to which the culprit belongs which must be pun- 
ished, and not necessarily the individual wrong-doer. 
This brings about blood-feuds and reprisals lasting for 
generations. Law takes its course without the interven- 
tion of a trial. This idea of joint liability is carried to 
an absurd extreme among some people, where a person 
injuring himself has to be punished, as he has thus in- 
jured his group. 

The principle of collective responsibility is sometimes 
almost entirely lacking in our present-day life. It took 
nearly three years for America to realize its duties to the 
world at large during the late War, and even now it makes 
the mistake, according to many minds, of refusing the op- 
portunity to share in the responsibility of making a 
better world as visualized in the League of Nations. 
“Civic virtue” is another and narrower field where the 
principle of joint liability plays a part. The teachings 
of the Boy Scouts and other similar organizations lay 
emphasis upon this point. 

The duel among many uncivilized peoples is a higher 
phase of the collective method of redress. The murdered 
man’s brother may challenge a member of the group to 
which the criminal belongs. Later, the culprit himself 
may be forced to accept the challenge. 

There is the sharpest distinction made between crimes 
committed within the tribe or a smaller group and those 
perpetrated on persons outside these units. The recogni- 
tion of what constitutes a crime may depend entirely 
upon this factor of discrimination. Theft may be most 
severely dealt with within the group, but considered 
worthy of acclaim if directed toward a member of an- 
other band. Incest and adultery are solely, of course, 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 219 


“in-group” crimes, and are usually most heavily 
punished. 

Settlement or composition are factors that often come 
to play a part in early law on account of the barrenness 
of revenge with no direct compensation. The develop- 
ment of property also may lead to payment of goods 
as fines instead of blood revenge. This is seen in the 
wergild in Anglo-Saxon and in ancient Teutonic law. 
The wer was a man, or the price of a man’s life. There 
was a definite schedule of payments depending on the 
crime and on the importance of the individual killed or 
injured. This scheme of payment is common in primitive 
societies. 

Trials are, in many cases, magico-religious in charac- 
ter. Evidence of guilt or innocence is demanded of the 
supernatural powers. The decision is placed in the laps 
of the gods, and divination and ordeals are inaugurated 
to learn their will. The question asked is always a 
categorical one, demanding a negative or a positive 
answer. A person in Africa suspected of poisoning his 
wife is called upon to prove his innocence by undergoing 
the ordeal of poison. He has to eat the powdered bark 
of the casca tree. If he vomits, he is innocent; if the 
casca acts as a purgative, he is guilty and is put to 
death. Walking through burning coals is a common 
ordeal: the gods protecting the feet of the innocent from 
harm and allowing the guilty to suffer. 

This means of obtaining evidence was common in the 
Middle Ages in ecclesiastical as well as in civil trials. 
The Christian God was substituted for the heathen 
deities as the purveyor of justice. The corsned was a 
piece of bread consecrated by exorcism and swallowed 


220 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


by a person suspected of crime. If the accused was 
guilty, the bread was supposed to produce convulsions 
in accordance with the prayer of the exorcism; if he was 
innocent no harm resulted. Witches were tried by ordeal. 
The wager of battle was another means of administering 
justice. The “judgment of God” regarding guilt avoided 
the possibility of perjury, and made a definite decision 
inevitable. If two persons were suspected of guilt; each 
was made to hold out his arms in the form of a cross. 
God gave strength to the innocent, and thus he could hold 
out his arms longer than the guilty one, and his inno- 
cence was established. 

Torture, which long held its place as an engine of jus- 
tice in the Christian Church was very seldom employed 
by the savage to determine guilt. 

The oath is really an ordeal, and was originally ap- 
plied to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the suspected 
culprit. It is now used to confirm the truthfulness of 
the witness, with the implied idea that the Deity would 
avenge him who swears falsely. It may be suggested 
that the increasing prevalence of perjury is due to a cor- 
responding decrease in the idea of the sanctity of the 
oath, and the feeling that God, after all, is not going to 
punish one who swears falsely. 

Goitein, in his Primitive Ordeal and Modern Law, 
thinks that the passage from ordeal to trial is bridged 
by the oath, accompanied by a psychological develop- 
ment from emotion to reason, and that the human judge 
is gradually substituted for the supernatural power that 
determines the result of the ordeal.® This “worldly 
method” of trial by a judge, more commonly by a jury, 
is not unknown in the primitive world. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 221 


TaBu 


Tabu is first of all a form of Jaw, but. it is often a 
: system 1 in itself, even an institution. _The interdiction put 


yeni 


shalt’s, ” Most of the Ten Commandments can be placed 
in the category of tabus. This word, which has been 
taken over into our language, is a Polen term with 
an uncertain etymology. In the land of its birth it is 
applied alike to anything holy and sacred or polluted 
and accursed. Signs reading ‘“Kapu,” which is another 
form of “tabu,” are still used in the modern city of 
Honolulu for “No Trespassing,” “No Passing Through,” 
“Keep Off.” 

The important feature from the psychological point of 
view in the study of tabu is not the things which are 
forbidden but the mere fact of prohibition. ATI objects 
covered by a tabu are dangerous, but few things danger- 
ous in themselves are tabu. Wittingly rubbing your 
hand on the edge of a sharp knife is not tabu, but look- 
ing at the moon may be dangerous to life under certain 
conditions. 

I once knew a Navajo woman, over sixty years old, 
who was quite evidently suffering from the infirmities of 
old age. The cause of her weaknesses, in her estimation, 
had necessarily to be traced back to some violation of a 
tabu. She had never wittingly broken one of these un- 
written laws, but her present condition indicated that in 
some way the gods were offended with her. She called 
in a shaman to determine the tabu which had been vio- 
lated. He went into a trance, but could find no way in 


222 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


which she had erred. He did discover, however, that 
shortly before this woman’s birth, sixty years or more 
before, her mother had broken the tabu against pregnant 
women seeing an eclipse of the moon. The mother had 
not been punished, but the sins of the parent had visited, 
not the child, but the woman in her old age. Elaborate 
ceremonials were then undertaken to appease these long- 
suffering gods. 

_ Things which experience would never teach you are 
_ dangerous in themselves are often prohibited. But the 
savage, knowing the tabus of his people, and even un- 
wittingly breaking one, may become ill, and die, so strong 
is the force of suggestion and his belief in the unerring 
power of evil which comes to all violators of these un- 
written laws. 

Tabu has a mystery about it. “To break a tabu is to 
set in motion against oneself mystic wonder-working 
power in one form or another. It may be of the wholly 
bad variety. .... On the other hand, many tabooed 
things, woman’s blood or the king’s touch, have power 
to cure no less than to kill.”’1° Frazer considers tabu 
a negative sort of magic. There is no doubt that the 
prohibitions of tabu are often as irrational as the posi- 
tive precepts coming under magic and sorcery. Many 
tabus begin in the same way as magical practices; an 
attempt to find a cause for an effect, and the same 
illogical modes of thought frequently underlie both magic 
and tabu. Both, to a great extent, work along the same 
lines by the supposed laws of contact and similarity. 
Contagious magic prevents the touching of a new-born 
babe until acts of purification have been carried out. 
Symbolic magic interdicts an Eskimo boy of Baffin’s 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 223 


Land from playing cat’s cradle, lest, later on in life, his 
fingers might get entangled in the line of a harpoon. 

Marett thinks that tabu is closely bound up with the 
idea of mana. This is a Melanesian word, meaning 
power, and shows itself in any object, non-human or 
human, that produces extraordinary effects. In the 
Pacific Islands all great achievements..of-men—areat- 
tributed.to it. When it is found in an inanimate object 
it may produce some physical effect, “Tabu simply im- 
plies that you must be heedful in regard to the super- 
natural... ..° The warning is against casual, incautious, 
profane dealings. ‘Not to be lightly approached’ is Cod- 
rington’s translation for the corresponding term in the 
New Hebrides.” There is thus something besides sym- 
pathetic magic in the idea of tabu. A chief is tabu: he. 
has mana and is therefore feared. He is not held in awe 
by men “lest they become kingly, but lest they be blasted 
by the superman’s supermanliness,” 11 

The transmissibility of mana and of tabu is one of 
the most persistent features. Examples of pollution by 
contact have already been noted in some of the birth and 
death customs. In Greece the offerings used in purify- 
ing a murderer became in the process themselves pol- 
luted, and had to be burned. The contagion or infection 
of sacredness works in exactly the same way. A holy 
man or a holy thing makes all surrounding objects sacred, 
and the unconsecrated are proscribed in their actions in 
the presence of holiness. The body, the clothes, the 
utensils, the footprints, even the shadow of a king, are, 
sometimes fatal to those who come in contact with shen 
Fish in the sacred river in Attica were themselves, like 
the stream, sacred to Demeter, and might be caught by 
her priests alone. 


| 


224 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Tabu may sometimes be called an institution in early 
society. This is especially true in Polynesia, where it 
‘was almost a method of government. It was a penal 
code as well as a religious one. It permeated every _ 
act of life, from birth to death. There were certain — 
permanent ‘prohibitions connected with royal personages 
and chiefs, places, and things, and there were temporary 
prohibitions placed on objects and places by decree of 
the rulers. A whole island might be under a tabu, and no 
one could leave or approach it. There were tabu periods, 
often several in a month, when no work of any kind 
could be done, and no food could be cooked. Dogs 
were tied up so that they could not bark, and fowls were 
placed in the dark. The Christian missionaries found 
it easy to introduce the rigid observance of a Puritanical 
Sabbath in Hawaii, as a tabu on work and play was 
established by the chiefs at the request of the mission- 
aries every seventh day. 

The break-down of the tabu among a primitive people 
on the arrival of the whites is rapid. When the native 
Hawaiians found the white man doing with impunity that 
which their laws forbade, and no evil resulting, they soon 
realized that tabus were entirely artificial affairs, and 
that the gods were not constantly on the watch and 
always eager to punish the breaker of these laws. 

It was the tabus in the Middle Ages which were often 
mistaken for that which constituted Christianity. The 
best Christians, it was sometimes thought, were those 
who construed the tabus on wealth, pleasure, luxury, and 
sex most strictly. Such persons were the most holy, 
and some could even work miracles.?” 

Tabu is so closely intertwined with our social and 
religious life that it is often completely overlooked in 














Social Origins and Social Continuities 225 


any estimate of our social and religious institutions. The 
tabu of food, for example, found among primitive peo- 
ples, often in connection with totemism, and in other 
features of their life, is brought down to us by the fast 
of the Christian Church and by prohibitions regarding 
certain foods by the Jews. Many tabus are essentially 
irrational. It is difficult to draw the line separating tabus 
founded on superstitions and prohibitions resembling 
tabus in that they are irrational. To use a homely 
example, the older books on etiquette state that green 
peas should be eaten with a spoon and never with 
a fork. The modern rule is exactly the opposite. In 
the present age many of our tabus are fast disappear- 
ing and with them some of the refinements and decen- 
cies of life. Some, on the other hand, we can well dis- 
pense with. 

There is little direct evidence to show exactly how 
primitive man decided what things were to be prohibited, 
but we can reason by analogy regarding this point, by 
noting the ease with which certain customs come to be 
considered unlucky in our own civilized life. Super- 
stitions often arise owing to a false reasoning in the 
search backward for a cause of some bad effect. Some- 
one has said that we are all ex-savages with customs 
bearing visible traces of our ancient ancestors. 


CoLLEGE SUPERSTITIONS* 


As an illustration of the continuity of ideas between 
the savage and civilized man, a discussion of present- 
day superstitions, magic, tabu, and charms is not out 

*In the Appendix will be found a selection of themes written 


by Freshmen upon superstitions, together with a few comments 
by the author. 


226 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


of place. We all think of the ignorant as being es- 
pecially prone to superstitious practices. During the 
crisis of the late War, superstition raised its head high 
above the horizon; the number of amulets and charms 
worn by the soldiers and sailors was almost equal to the 
number of the personnel. But it is not the superstitions 
of the ignorant, strictly speaking, nor those of the en- 
listed man, upon which the present investigation is di- 
rected; but the superstitious practices of the college 
student, both male and female. 

This quest was started as the result of a talk given to 
a class of young women. The topic for discussion was 
the character of a fetish, a material object, usually of 
some homely sort, that was believed to possess some 
power for good or for evil—perhaps the abode of a 
spirit. One of the members of the class raised her hand 
and announced that she thought she had a fetish—her 
fountain pen. She had used it most successfully in 
writing her examinations, but, upon losing it, she re- 
ceived poor marks in all the tests written with a bor- 
rowed pen. Her trust in her “fetish” increased after 
she had found her own pen and regained her good marks. ~ 
The pen must have mana. 

This incident, which happened many years ago, be- 
came the incentive to an investigation of the use of 
fetishes and the belief in superstitions among college 
undergraduates. My sporadic interest continued for a 
long time, and finally resulted in a personal investiga- 
tion of classes of young men and young women in dif- 
ferent parts of the country. It was found that from 
70 to 75 per cent of the undergraduates studied carried 
out certain acts or refrained from carrying them out in 
the hope that something good would follow or something 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 227 


evil would be prevented. About 25 per cent of the per- 
sons examined carried about their persons or had in their 
rooms “lucky” objects: pocket-pieces, coins, amulets. A 
part of these, at least, were strictly analogous with the 
fetish of the savage. Contrary to common belief, col- 
lege boys seem in general to be more given to super- 
stitious practices than their academic sisters. 

"Leaving aside the more common superstitions known, 
even if not observed, by everyone,—thirteen at the table, 
breaking mirrors, Friday the thirteenth, walking under a 
ladder, and others of this sort,—let us consider those 
which are met with only in an educational institution. 
A long list of practices was found that were carried out 
before examinations. Certain boys did not shave on the 
day of a test (perhaps the Samson complex) ; other stu- 
dents, including girls, wore certain clothes that were 
thought to be lucky. A special neck-tie was often reserved 
for this time of tribulation. The same relative seat in the 
examination rooms, lecture notes under the pillow on the 
night before a test, a visit to morning chapel, are only 
a few practices which are in the census. An examination 
must never be said to have been easy. Several men have 
reserved a suit of clothes for examinations, and have worn 
them at every major test taken during their four years 
at college. Girls have good-luck dresses, always having 
a successful time when wearing a certain dress; other 
dresses fall into the opposite category. 

There is a longer list of protective measures grouped 
around athletic events and games of chance. Profes- 
sional athletes are proverbially most superstitious, and 
the college athlete is no exception. Suits worn at prac- 
tice must by no means be changed for new ones during 
a contest. To wear clothing, a belt for example, belong- 


228 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


ing to a good tennis player, gives you additional skill; a 
perfect example of contagious magic. Tapping the home 
plate with a bat a certain number of times, whirling 
the bat before coming to the plate in a certain way, are 
very common. One man considered himself a “hoodoo”; 
his presence as a spectator was always disastrous to 
his college team; so he remained away from games, 
owing to his college loyalty. A four-leaf clover or some 
other device is often varnished on the oars of the boats 
belonging to a crew. The numberless devices and tabus 
centering around games of chance can be passed over. 

Many of these practices can be traced directly to the 
social background of a youth’s family,—perhaps to a 
superstitious nurse, or to parents who believe in omens. 
It is quite evident, on the other hand, that some are 
entirely personal and spontaneous. We hear much of 
thirteen at a table, breaking a mirror, and that kind 
of superstition, but how many have heard of the idea, 
not at all uncommon, that a definite point must be 
reached before a certain event occurs? <A clock is about 
to strike and one must arrive at a given place before the 
bell begins. If this is attained, a feeling of contentment 
follows. 

Many of these practices do not come under the head 
of superstitions at all, but should simply be called foolish 
habits. Everyone who raps on wood after boasting is 
not superstitious. The test, it seems to me, is this. If 
a feeling of distinct uneasiness follows a failure to carry 
out one of these acts, and, conversely, if satisfaction fol- 
lows as the result of having performed it, one must be 
called superstitious. A common verdict regarding such 
actions is that “it isn’t much bother and we’d better take 
no chances.” The play instinct has a vart in all this. 








Social Origins and Social Continutties 229 


There is little doubt that the psychology behind these 
actions is varied. We can only say that some, at 
least, belong to the background of the savage, and 
can be explained only after taking into account the 
“laws” of his magic. 

One man writes he cannot be superstitious because he is 
an agnostic, another is quite as sure that he is not super- 
stitious because he is a Christian. A third states that he 
used to be superstitious, but that he is not so any longer; 
in fact, he thinks that thirteen is his luckiest number. 
One can easily agree with a Freshman who writes, “Su- 
perstition is the daughter of ignorance and the paramour 
of fear.” The fact remains that present-day man has his 
superstitions, and under the petty crises of life in the stu- 
dent. world—examinations and athletic contests—they 
appear in varied forms. Primitive man has to have some- 
thing supernatural or mystical on which to lean in his 
affairs, and the same feeling is present in our lives today. 

Religion furnishes a sustaining force to many and in 
some of its manifestations shows certain phases of super- 
stition. The Church has been forced to take cognizance 
of the fact that some material object is often demanded 
as a visible manifestation of the hidden powers of the 
Spirit. According to the newspapers, there was a service 
not long ago in a church in the Italian district of Boston, 
where the priest invoked the protection of St. Christopher, 
the Patron Saint of transportation, in behalf of hundreds 
of automobilists gathered together for this purpose. 
Each automobile driver received two medals which were 
blessed during the service. One was to be worn on the 
-person and the other, on which was pictured Titian’s 
St. Christopher bearing the Christ-child over a river, was 


230 Social Origins and Social Continuities | 


to be attached to the motor. Both medals wero in- 
scribed, “St. Christopher protect us.” 

Hesiod, “the father of Greek didactic poetry,” ends 
his poem Works and Days thus: 


“Tucky and bless’d is he who, knowing all these things, 
Toils in the fields, blameless before the Immortals, 
Knowing in birds and not overstepping tabus.”™ 


ETHICS 


The final topic for consideration is the questiun of 
ethical conduct. It is well, first of all, to correct a pop- 
ular impression that the savage is a child. Shelley wrote, 
“The savage is to ages what the child is to years.” The 
childishness of primitive man is frequently mentioned. 
There is a child part in the brain of primitive man as 
in civilized man, as has already been pointed out. This 
does not mean that we can always explain the activities 
of the savage by watching our children develop. The 
analogy is not a true one. Gummere has noted the 
foolishness of the attempts of some to compare the 
poetry of primitive man with the first cry of pain or 
of pleasure in an infant. The infant of an adult race 
and an adult of an infant race differ fundamentally. In 
emotions, in character, and in morals, the savage is a 
man. 

In this discussion of morality we can dismiss as irrele- 
vant from our discussion the intuitional theory that man 
has a special God-given conscience, an inherent moral 
sense, that tells him what is good and what is bad. James 
wrote that the holders of the intuitional theory of cthics- 
are in much the same position as the famous blindfolded 
man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 231 


there. We can also neglect the question of “moral obliga- 
tion” to conformity to the dictates of conscience. The 
matter of subjective morality is not touched upon here 
as the data are too complicated and too confusing. This 
is so both by the nature of the subject itself and by the 
anthropological material available for its study. We 
shall limit ourselves primarily to a discussion of the 
moral code of the savage and his success in living up to 
this code. 

Morality, both to the savage and to civilized man, 
is often nothing but conformity to tradition and custom. 
It is not universal but parti¢ular in its application. It 
is quite evident that primitive man has a code of conduct 
that is prescribed for him by the society to which he 
belongs. It is precise, and there is no possibility of hesi- 
tation since his laws and customs coincide in a way not 
found in civilized communities. With us, law has only 
to do with the codification of those customs which are 
so fundamental in the life of a group that society has 
found it necessary to enforce them. Our freedom regard- 
ing customs is left, to a great extent, to personal choice, 
although encroachments are being made upon it more 
and more. 

In commenting upon a person in modern society who 
has overstepped convention and trampled upon the pro- 
prieties of life, we often describe him as “acting like a 
perfect savage.” I hope that I have been able to show 
that this comparison is not fair to the savage. We have 
found him observing the strictest rules of etiquette laid 
down by his laws of tabu. We have seen him restrained 
in sex matters, in diet, and in actions. The untrammeled 
creature in primitive society is a “poetic license.” 

The world’s opinion of the ethical conduct of primitive 


232 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


man is mainly derived from the tales of travellers, about 
which comment has been made before. Mariner, in 
giving an account of the Tongans, describes them “as 
loyal and pious, obedient children, affectionate parents, 
kind husbands, modest and faithful wives, and true 
friends.”” On the other hand, he writes. “They seem to 
have little feeling of morality. They have no words for 
justice or injustice, for cruelty or humanity. Theft, re- 
venge, rape, and murder, under many circumstances, are 
not held to be crimes... . The men were cruel, treach- 
erous and revengeful.”** This lack of consistency is 
quite typical of the traveller who attempts to describe © 
the behavior of primitive man. 

In the study of morality of any people it is often dif- 
ficult for an outsider to gain a very definite idea of the 
code of ethical conduct in force at any time or in any 
place. This is especially true when the savage is con- 
sidered, as customs, often abhorrent to the investigator, 
may have an ethical sanction behind them. It is some- 
times difficult to realize that crimes among one people 
may be virtues among another, and vice versa. This 
truth is easier to understand after one has considered 
the tremendous changes in moral standards in our own 
society, even within a few generations, nay, even within 
a single generation. 

Cannibalism, female infanticide, killing the aged and 
infirm, will always shock the sensibilities of civilized 
man, but in all cases there is some reason, connected with 
religion, economic necessity, or with social standards, 
that makes these customs fall naturally into the moral 
background of primitive life. We hear more of these acts 
abhorrent to our feelings than we do of those customs 
which more nearly conform to our own mode of living. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 233 


Cannibalism is relatively rare, and when found it is 
usually associated with people who are by no means in 
the lowest stages of barbarism. There is no doubt that 
it does conform to the mores of some primitive peoples, 
and as such should not be considered unethical. 

It is often far from easy to gain a satisfactory knowl- 
edge of the moral code of any one people. Perhaps the 
most elusive data of the field anthropologist are those 
based upon standards of conduct. Direct questions 
usually lead to very unsatisfactory results. A study of 
mythology and traditions is sometimes useful in this 
connection. It means nothing that a crime, terrible to 
us, is committed in the myth. Story-tellers of all ages 
have delighted in tales of horror. But if the beneficent 
gods of the people are shown as approving the crime, if 
the teller of the myth expects assent on the part of his 
audience, or if the action meets with a reward, we may be 
fairly certain that the crime is not a crime in the eyes 
of the primitive group, however repulsive it appears to 
our ideas of conduct. If, on the other hand, some action 
which appears as natural to us and entirely harmonious 
with our code of ethics is severely punished in the tales, 
and the culprit meets with universal disapproval, we 
can be sure that this is unethical from the point of view 
of the people in question.1® 

There is no doubt, then, that primitive man has a very 
definite standard_of. aan and wrong. His rules of 
‘conduct cover in a very orderly way practically every 
action that he takes. “Custom is king’’; it is more than 
this, it is a sacred king. It leaves little leeway for a 
personal judgment regarding actions, or small oppor- 
tunity for deliberation. Conformity to the accepted 
code is demanded by the social traditions of the group, 


234 Social Origins and Social Continurties 


and often by the religious sanction as well. The fear 
of breaking a tabu is analogous to that feeling of 
breaking some rule laid down by the more highly devel- 
oped religions. The term “an upright, God-fearing 
man,” as McDougall points out, shows the long per- 
sistence of fear and awe in religion, and the tendency 
to identify uprightness with God-fearingness.1® Primi- 
tive man is a gods-fearing man in every respect. But 
another factor which always plays a part in enforcing 
the moral code, in both savage and civilized communi- 
ties, is public opinion, the desire to stand well in the eyes 
of the community. In a homogeneous group, as we ~ 
find it among savages, the social sanction finds behind 
it a social solidarity. Public opinion means a single 
unanimous force, and the social adjustment of the indi- 
vidual is practically inevitable. Social commendation 
is the one thing desired. Ridicule and perhaps ostracism 
are some of the punishments for action contrary to the 
accepted rule. 

Primitive man has two standards of conduct,—that 
directed towards members of his own group, and_that 
for all outsiders. A crime committed against a member 
of one’s own clan and punishable by death, may pass 
into an action commended by all if directed towards an 
outsider. Our standards towards our enemies when at 
war are in the same category. Foreign relations often 
show an ethical code differing from that used within a 
country. 

Morality, it has been said, is but the prevailing system. 
of keeping people in their place, out of other people’s 
way; the uninitiated out of the way of the initiated, 
kindred away from kindred as in exogamy, the subject 





Social Origins and Social Continuitties 235 


out of the way of the chief or priest, and the dead out 
of the way of the living.17 

Let us consider very briefly some of the customs called 
“virtues” of primitive man as he has been pictured in the 
preceding chapters. Take first the “domestic virtues.” 
The basis of all society is in the family, and true marriage 
is always present, Furthermore, it is often monogamous 
relationship. William Dean Howells said, “Man is im- 
perfectly monogamous,” and I am inclined to think that 
this imperfection is as great in modern society as it is 
among savages. But this is beside the point, as we 
are discussing the rules of established ethical conduct 
bearing on sex relations, and here we find monogamous 
marriage the commonest form. And polygyny itself, 
repelling to modern thought, does not necessarily carry 
with it any degradation of women as we find it in early 
society. We have seen the strictest rules regarding the 
choice of the wife, the descent, inheritance, and _ resi- 
dence, all working out in a well regulated system. The 
co-operation of father and mother in rearing chil- 
dren and providing them with food and shelter comes 
full-born from the animal into the human world. Uni- 
versal obedience and respect. paid by youth to old age 
is a prominent feature in every primitive group, and one 
certainly cannot say the same thing of modern society, 
The instruction of the youth in the arts is almost like 
the apprenticc system. Their ethical and religious train- 
ing is seen in the puberty rite, cruel, but socially 
effective. 

The relationship between kinsmen extends farther than 
with us. Emotionally and socially they form one brother- 
hood as seen in the clan. Blood revenge strengthens this 


236 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


solidarity. Hospitality to strangers, the adoption of 
prisoners of war and other outsiders, are all common 
features of savage life. 

The “political virtues” are often simply an enlarge- 
ment of those of the domestic horizon with tribal solidar- 
ity and co-operation between groups by no means un- 
common. Warfare is seldom endemic among primitive 
peoples, as one might be led to suppose. A democracy 
‘s the usual form of government, and prestige and leader- 
ship are the rewards for high endowment on the mental 
rather than on the physical side. 

I have been discussing this subject from the objective» 
side. Passing for a moment to the subjective view of 
morality, I feel that we have something to learn from the 
undeveloped peoples. We certainly have a great deal to 
regret in our dealings with the simpler populations. 
Savage society is on the wane. The “nature peoples” 
have suffered despoilment and extermination by the 
“triumphs of our modern civilization.” They have suc- 
cumbed partially at least to the destructive methods 
of civilized greed, but principally to alcoholism and the 
parasitic diseases of modern times. The carriers of this 
civilization are carriers of disease. These willing bear- 
ers are more or less inured to their own vices until they 
have acquired a loathsome sort of blunting to all that is 
natural and simple. The modern estimate of primitive 
man is usually based upon the contemporaneous savage 
with his characteristics, many of which have been ac- 
quired from the white man and are foreign to his an- 
cestors. It is unfair to study him after he has been under 
the influences of the kind of civilization found around 
trading posts, railroad stations, and the wharves of 
island communities. He should be studied away from 











Social Origins and Social Continuities 237 


these “uplifting tendencies” and before his “brutish and 
stultified régime” has been conquered by a “superior 
biological and ethical power.” 

The religion of primitive man embraces. his.every.act, 
and tl there j ere 18 No distinct category of religion divorced from 
daily conduct. “In the same way, morality and religion 
are not so completely separated as is commonly supposed. 
The supernatural sanctions for action and divine ret- 
ribution, often as a certain punishment for breaking 
the moral code, show the close relationship existing be- 
tween religion and the laws of right living. 

‘We find that certain acts have always been repugnant 
in all stages of society, such as murder, theft, and 
want of hospitality. The ideas regarding incest 
vary, but the crime is universally condemned by the 
Savage, quite as much as by civilized man. Primitive 
man probably has quite as many inhibitions as we 
have today. His moral code lays down a definite 
line of behavior, and there are no shades of interpreta- 
tion possible. It is either right to do a thing, or wrong. 
Mitigating circumstances are rarely allowed as excuses 
for breaking a tabu. Furthermore, there is never any 
difference between public opinion and the code of right 
conduct. There is, thus, little occasion for the savage 
to stand out against public opinion. In a homogeneous 
group there is not one belief for the majority and another 
for the minority, with the possibility of a selection of the 
right from the wrong. Public opinion is the code. 18 


As Marett shows, one of the drawbacks of the ruder_’- 


peoples 1 is the lack of privacy, and “from a moral point 
‘of View, this lack of opportunity for private judgment is | 
equivalent to a want of moral freedom. ... Savage 
morality, then, is not rational in the sense of analysed, 


238 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


but is, so to speak, impressionistic.”1® The moral 
sanction is external, not internal. 

I have tried to show that there are certain fundamental 
aspects of moral nature which are changeless whether 
found in early or late society. Moral tradition is an- 
other thing. The test of ethical conduct is based upon 
the way in which man lives up to his particular tradi- 
tion. The savage has a code, and his success in living 
up to it is probably as great, if not greater, than that of 
civilized man who tries to conform to the present 
standards of ethical conduct. The spectacle of a 
European or an American in an environment where the 
restraints of the moral code of his group have little hold 
is certainly not one which brings to his race any special 
credit as an ethical people. And this is, of course, the 
same line of conduct carried out by a savage under 
similar circumstances. 

There is the story told of a traveller who, on return- 
ing from a visit to a savage tribe, wrote a book. In his 
section on ‘Customs and Manners” he had only these four 
words: ‘Customs, beastly; manners, none.” This chap- 
ter and, in fact, this whole book are attempts to prove 
that this traveller was wrong. The same idea runs 
through the writings of many. The philosopher Hobbes, 
writing on primitive life, said it was “solitary, poor, 
nasty, brutish, and short.” Even Spencer erred greatly 
in his description of many of the features of primitive 
life. 

The great difficulty with the general point of view to- 
wards the savage is, as Dewey writes, that “the present 
civilized mind is virtually taken as a standard and the 
savage mind is measured off on this fixed scale. It is 
no wonder that the outcome is negative; that primitive 








Social Origins and Social Continuities 239 


mind is described in terms of ‘lack,’ ‘absence:’ its 
traits are incapacities.”2° In an Elizabethan trans- 
lation of the two first books of Herodotus there is a 
marginal note against a startling statement regarding 
Egyptian manners——“Observe ye Beastly Devices of 
ye Heathen.” In this rapid survey of the social life 
of “the heathen” I have tried to give some of the cus- 
toms, “beastly” and otherwise. Even the so-called 
“beastly” ones have a rational place in the social back- 
ground of savage life. 


CoNCLUSIONS 


Our findings with regard to the nature of uncivilized 
man and of his institutions may be summarized as 
follows: 

1. There is no present evidence, physical, psychological, 
or cultural, to prove that contemporaneous savages are 
fundamentally different in mind, body, or cstatc from the 
sophisticated human product of civilization. The savage 
is “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” He is, in 
short, a “poor relation, but our own.” 

2. Either by common cultural invention or by inde- 
pendent invention, savages the world over have come 
to possess in some form every basic institution of civi- 
lized society. There is no reason to believe that they owe 
such social institutions to precept, example, or imitation 
of the so-called “Higher Cultures.” On the contrary, 
these “Higher Cultures” owe much to the institutions 
from which they have been derived. 

3. These institutions are not necessarily the nodes of 
a common growth, nor can they be arranged in an orderly 
series. The species and, often, the genus may vary 
greatly. The evolution of institutions may, like physical 


240 Social Origins and Social Continuties 


life, have had many mutations; but, unlike the animal 
and vegetable world, they have had more than this; 
for they are characterized by many spontaneous growths, 
individual creations of life-forms, (the product of the 
workings of the mind), with few homologies but many 
analogies. Similarity of nomenclature does not always 
mean either identity of structure or a common history. 

4. The savage in his customs and social organization 
manifests a genius for diversification, a skill in prac- 
tical adaptation, and a willingness and often a sur- 
prising ability to modify and to improve which make it . 
unsafe to assume that primitive man is either stagnant or 
degenerate. Any modern group of savages with health 
and unmolested by the grosser benefits of civilization 
may have the potentiality to work out for itself an abun- 
dant spiritual and material enrichment. 

5. All of the defects behind the so-called irrational 
follies of the savage, evidenced in superstition, credulity, 
suspicion, and vanity, are the common inheritance of 
all mankind. The same psychological principles are 
behind the same psychological weaknesses both in sav- 
age and in civilized life. They are actively function- 
ing among the ignorant of the civilized peoples and are 
by no means atrophied in those human groups which 
have been most constantly exposed to education. 

6. The measure of savage attainment in conformity 
of conduct to custom and law is such as to challenge the 
admiration of every impartial student of ethics. 

7. If we compare the relation between opportunity and 
achievement of the savage and of his more cultured 
brother, we soon realize that, from this point of view, our 
superiority is very doubtful. The complexity of institu- 





Social Origins and Social Continuities 241 


tions is not a measure of their validity, nor is the multi- 
plication of inventive devices a truc criterion of progress. 
The savage is a rational being, morally sound, and ir 
every respect worthy of a place in the “Univers¢ , 
Brotherhood of Man.’ 


















APPENDIX 
DosoMES ON SUPERSTITIONS AND OTHER 
EFS AND PRACTICES * 


wuichly be divided into those 
pose founded on some 
arm. There are 
Kcan be classi- 
athers are 
_ brief 
erst 
- num- 
AS, breaking 
second class is 
those which are 
no outside influence. 
brivately, and hold a place 
to anyone else. Imaginary lines 
romineore at right angles from pieces of furniture which 
must be avoided, and reaching a definite place before 
some event occurs, are examples of this type. 
Fetishes may be placed in the same two categories; 
the rabbit’s foot and the horseshoe are suggestion-made 
charms; many fetishes, however, are selected as seats © 


* The reader is referred to the previous discussion in the text 
(p. 225-229), where there is a summary treatment of college 
superstitions. 









242 








Social Origins and Social Continuities 243 


of power owing to no suggestion from others, but due 
to the supposed “run of luck” coming from association 
with these objects. In this type a man does not start 
out and say he is going to have this or that as his fetish. 
He is fortunate in some undertaking and, reasoning 
backward, he tries to find something which is respon- 
sible for his success. 

Owing to the kindly co-operation of the authorities 
in charge of a Freshman English composition course, a 
large number of themes have been collected, showing 
the attitude of the college man towards superstitions and 
other beliefs. A selection of these themes is presented 
here. Facetious essays on this subject, that were ob- 
vious attempts to excite the credulity of the instructor, 
have been eliminated, but examples of “fine writing,” 
so typical of Freshman themes, have not been barred 
out. I feel sure that the ones given here are sincere at- 
tempts to express the individual attitude of the authors. 
The major part of my investigation of college supersti- 
tions has been directed towards the beliefs of my own 
students, where I have been able to check up by personal 
contact the results as I find them. These Freshman 
superstitions have not been investigated by personal 
interview with the writers; but they all bear out what 
I have found among the older men in my own classes. 

An extension of the study of this type of college-lore 
should be made to include the nationality, the social 
class, and the scholastic standing of the superstitious 
student. This has not been done to any great extent. 
The poor, hard-working youth has little time for super- 
stitions, but the college “sport” and the athlete, almost 
without exception, carry out, often as a play instinct, 
many superstitious practices. The good student seems 


244 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


to be almost as venial in this respect as the low-grade 
man. These themes are presented as they were written, 
without the suggested corrections of the instructors. 


I feel quite sure that many of my readers will agree 
strongly with the attitude of the authors of the two 
following themes: 


“What has the modern day come to, when the English Depart- 
ment of a great college in all seriousness asks the students to 
write a composition on their individual fetishes or superstitions. 
Any man possessed with an ordinary amount of common sense 
knows that the days of Macbeth’s witches and the supernatural 
are past.” 


“TI am very sorry to say that I have no fetish, crotchet, or other 
interesting disease for the analysis of the distinguished in- 
vestigator. Is not a modern college a most unpromising field to 
gain any data of such a sort? One should go lower in the 
intellectual scale, to toothless cronies, even perhaps to hod 
carriers. The lower we get the richer the field becomes until we 
come to the creature who is kept in the padded cell.” 


Another expresses the same disgust at the subject. 
given for a theme, but he does admit that, far in his 
distant youth, he did have a fetish. 


“TI sincerely believe that any full-grown man who has enough 
brains to be a college student, but who is earnestly superstitious 
in any way whatsoever, should be an object of pity rather than 
of derision. Although I have taxed my brain for an hour, I can 
recollect but one instance in which I ever carried a fetish. Note, 
however, that I did not make myself an object of pity, according 
to the above definition, because I was but ten years old. At that 
time I half-convinced myself that an old key, which I had 
accidentally carried with me to a party, had been the substantial 
cause of my having a very good time. When I went to a 
Valentine party some time later, I took the key with me in the 
hope that it would have a magic influence on my happiness. But, 
for a partner in some of the games that we played that evening, 








Social Origins and Social Continutties 245 


I was allotted a certain homely red-haired girl, to whom I have 
a particular aversion. The next day, I threw the key away in 
disgust.” 


Still another resents the fact that a man with any 
intellect can be superstitious. He feels that psychical 
research and hypnotism are far more interesting: 


“I have one superstition, and that is that a man who is 
superstitious should be avoided. He is certainly a bore and 
probably lacking in intellect. It takes a woefully deficient sense 
of proportion to picture the Almighty on the watch for those 
who break mirrors or spill the salt. There may be truth in “lucky 
numbers” but if there is, then, in my opinion, the times are out 
of joint, and such truth should remain concealed in the valve of 
the reservoir where, proverbs tell us, it belongs. I am interested 
in psychical research and in hypnotism. I am not one of those 
who declare loudly that ‘all mediums are frauds’; some one 
might ask me if I had studied the subject. But in the matter of 
superstitions I can speak with authority. In my youth I have 
shattered mirrors, walked under ladders and played with the 
salt ...and nothing serious happened. On the whole the only 
really unlucky thing is to believe in luck.” 


One man feels that mental telepathy is more worthy 
of study: 

“Superstition, thank Heaven, is one hallucination which has 
never troubled me. I believe in mental telepathy and instances 
of ‘mental stunts’, but as regards superstition I can say truly 
that I have never seen anything to prove that there is anything 
mits” 

The next feels that religion is a superstition and, as 
he is an agnostic, he cannot be expected to have any 
such beliefs. He is also one of many who feel that he is 
free from superstition if he always goes out of his way 
to court “No. 13.” 


“TI take great joy in doing everything that I am told will bring 
me ‘bad luck.’ I always make it a point, in fact, I go out of my 


246 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


way, to knock the little fat god Superstition on the head. I 
have no objection to walking under a ladder except when it is 
used by a painter, and then it is a case of ‘discretion is the better 
part of valor.’ I suppose partly out of mere bravado, I always 
ask for ‘Number 13.’ This feeling, or rather, lack of feeling 
towards fetishes is due to the fact that I am an Agnostic. With 
me Agnosticism is not merely a newly acquired fact, but a result 
of my bringing up. I have never been led—that is, guided by my 
parents—in any belief in divine power or being. In fact, I look 
upon religion as a superstition.” 


The opposite view is taken by another: 


“T am a Christian—at least-it is my ambition to be one—and 
in my opinion a true Christian should have no superstitions. 
Superstition is merely a remnant of heathenism.” 


A still keener religious attitude is shown in the follow- 
ing: 

“T do not believe in Fetishes. Fetishes are in fact little idols 
and as such have no place where the Bible reveals to men the 
only way to reconciliation with God. That men in a civilized 
land believe in the same little gods that the Indians and the 
other barbaric peoples do, shows the need of the proclamation 
of the good news of salvation through the atoning work of Jesus 
Christ. Man is a religious animal and if he does not, because of 
ignorance or self-will, know God, he will turn to graven images 
and bow down to them. It is a hopeful sign, in that it shows 
that the man feels the need of divine help, in the problems, and 
crises of his life. With the same breath one can sympathize with 
his misplaced faith and credulity because of the utter impotency 
of the fetish to help him. His only hope for supernatural guidance 
and for all tests and trials of life is to know the only and the 
true God and to “turn from idols to serve the living God.’” 


The two preceding writers would agree with Plutarch, 
who has much that is valuable to say regarding super- 
stitious. He remarks, “Ignorance and uninstructedness 
concerning the Gods may be compared to a river divided 
into two streams, one of which, as in stubborn souls, 








Social Origins and Social Continuities 247 


produceth Atheism; and the other of which, as in 
marshy soils, produceth Superstition.” 

Another theme denies superstition without bringing 
in religion: 


“Personally I am very much against any outward showing of 
superstitions, and have the tendency to do everything against 
such beliefs. If I see a ladder I walk under it. I have no reason 
to believe that ‘13’ is unlucky, nor do I spend my spare hours 
in seeking four-leaved clovers...As for me ‘I am from 
Missouri.’ ” 


A final theme shows resentment, but, this time, it is 
because the privacy of life is invaded. 


“Why should one be asked to betray himself in writing of his 
personal superstitions? Should one be asked to betray himself 
to satisfy the collective instinct or the eccentricities of a College 
‘Prof’? Should not superstitions be held as sacred to the one 
possessing them, something in the manner he regards his ‘in- 
dividual god’ or his Patron Saint? Those that regard themselves 
as not possessing personal superstitions may be accused of hiding 
them with the purpose of being different from other people. 
Those that have superstitions would be ashamed of them as a 
relic of their primitive ancestors. They should be considered as 
more demoralizing than little personal faults. He who is super- 
stitious has no place in America of the Twentieth Century.” 


One student does cherish a four-leaf clover, but not 
on superstitious grounds: 


“I pick up a four-leaf clover because it is rare and furnishes a 
topic for conversation.” 


The next essay explains very accurately and very well 
the background of superstition in modern life: 


“We live, so much like our predecessors of every age and 
clime,—we live, we say, in the age of enlightenment. But with 
all our harnessing of the forces of nature, we have not rid our- 
selves of many common superstitions, beliefs and practices, relics 
of mediaeval barbarism, the legacy of folklore of the dark ages 


248 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


when ail the lights were turned out and nobody dared to do any 
independent thinking. "Tis superstition as well as conscience that 
makes cowards of us all, every mother’s son of us, be he poet or 
peasant, prince or pauper, scientist or street-urchin, Secretary of 
Foreign Affairs or chimney sweep .. . There is no positive good 
or bad but only relative. Just so, we may boast that we are not 
superstitious but that only means that we do not know ourselves 
as well as we know others . . . I say ‘Pooh, pooh’ to all this rot, 
as I call it, about Friday, the 13th, black cats, ete. But that will 
assuredly be an extraordinary day when you will find me putting 
on my left shoe first or stepping on the cracks in a cement 
sidewalk.” 


The usual attitude of the student and the average 
point of view towards superstition, throughout the 
modern world, are shown in the two following themes: 


“Do I believe in fetishes or am I superstitious? At first, with- 
out considering the matter, I would say ‘no’ to both questions, 
but after examining my mind for a few minutes I am forced to 
admit that I am to some degree superstitious. Shortly before 
the hour examinations in November, I found a four-leaf clover 
in a book which I bought at a second-hand store. Although I 
would deny that I am superstitious, yet I carried that clover leaf 
to several examinations. As I was not satisfied with my work in 
these examinations, I decided that the clover leaf was bringing me 
‘bad luck,’ and threw it away ...In my belief, no matter how 
cultivated or educated a man may be, he still retains some slight 
traces of the superstitious beliefs of his ancestors.” 


“T cannot say that I actually believe in superstitions and 
charms: yet, when I become aware of them, when I am un- 
consciously doing something, I can hardly refrain from making 
use of them. Often, I never think of making use of the ‘knock- 
ing wood’ charm, yet at times when I make a remark appropriate 
for it, I cannot for the life of me refrain from knocking wood; 
although at the time I know it is all foolishness. I argue against 
my common sense, that performing these charms can do no 
harm, but it is best to take every safeguard possible. I have 
the same feeling when I am walking with a friend and we 
pass on different sides of a post, or when I go beneath a ladder. 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 249 


But the number 13 has rather the opposite effect upon me. I 
consider it lucky. I have one superstition, rather original as far 
as I am concerned, of not risking entering the water if I have 
done anything peculiar just beforehand. I remember one day 
I returned a long way back to the bath-house because I had 
not taken the usual path to the water.” 


Personally, I must confess, I sympathize with the 
views of the author of the following “finely written” 
theme, after a more or less intimate knowledge of the 
types of men who are somewhat superstitious and those 
who view with disdain any suggestion of the kind: 


“Says Kipling to his ‘Barrack-room’ mates: 


“You may talk o’ gin and beer 

When you're quartered safe out ’ere, etc., 
But when it comes to slaughter, 

You will do your work on water, etc.’ 


Just so. You may talk not in the light of calm reason and the 
throes of philosophic reflection about the foolishness and 
paganism of superstition. But out on the firing-line of life— 
not kid-glove life, that benevolent yeast called ‘the social whirl’; 
not even the life of the great middle class—but down at the 
bottom, the simple, the ignorant human life of the masses—the 
root from which those higher forms first sprouted, the rude trunk 
fundamental to the existence of the more beautiful branches— 
there is where you find your ‘slaughter’ and there you find no 
thought of the downright foolishness of superstition, for there 
they are content to go ‘ignorant’ if ‘knowledge’ means a weaken- 
ing of their blind hold on life and it does. Where the fighting 
is thickest, there are the strongest superstitions—and there, too, 
strange to say, are the men with the strongest personalities. 
When » man begins to throw away his little superstitions people 
say he is building character. Yes, but I am afraid that at the 
same time he is throwing away little by little his personality, 
that which made him feel his own peculiarities—himself as 
distinguished from the rest of the world. He begins to become 
more and more the literal ‘thinking machine’; he is headed 
straight towards the life of the stoic scientist—a man doubtless 


250 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


very valuable to the world, but whose society, somehow or other, 
I do not crave. No, Sir, I am proud of my superstitions. Every 
time I spit on my bait I chuckle to myself and thrill with the 
consciousness that J am human.” 


The most common superstitious practice is “knocking 
wood.” It is a foolish habit and nothing more, in most 
cases, and yet many feel uncomfortable when they re- 
frain from doing it, and the “armour of reason is not 
proof against insidious doubt.” In some cases the wood 
must be unvarnished, and, again, it must be touched by 
an ungloved hand. 


“Most people think of knocking on wood as a sort of joke; they 
do it just for fun. I used to think I did too; it was a sort of 
humorous notion, and I was rather proud of it. But one night I 
was disillusioned. I was lying in bed thinking about some- 
thing that I was very anxious to have happen. I said to myself, 
‘It can’t help happening.’ Unconsciously I felt around for some 
wood. The bed was made entirely of steel. I rolled over to the 
edge and felt for the floor; it was carpet-covered. When I found 
myself getting up and stumbling around in the dark until I found 
a chair on which to knock, I realized that it was no mere joke. 
Ever since then I’ve had an uncomfortable feeling when I predict 
something and don’t knock on wood. I know when I stop to 
reason it out that it’s all nonsense, but I have a feeling inside 
somewhere as if I ought to do it. I know perfectly well that it 
will have no effect on the ultimate result; but then, of course, it 
might, and what’s the use of taking chances? Now, instead of 
being proud of it, I’m ashamed of it and knock surreptitiously 
under tables, instead of boldly on the wall as I used to do.” 


“The one habit which may be called permanent is that of 
rapping on wood when I have just observed that, so far this 
season I have not had a single cold, or that, as yet, I have not 
been late to a lecture, or anything else which might be construed 
as a semi-boast. Not, you understand, because I have any 
faith in the efficacy of this performance; but merely because I 
feel better to have taken precaution against possible evil results.” 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 251 


“,..On the other hand, if, in thinking of some event in 
which I am interested, I am so unfortunate as to say either aloud 
or mentally ‘so and so will happen’ I knock wood at once to 
prevent any miscarriage due to my rash assertion. Had I never 
been informed of the protective power of wood, I probably should 
never have thought of it. As it is, though I am absolutely certain 
that knocking wood is perfectly impotent to change the course of 
events, just as my statement that such and such things are power- 
less to affect the facts, there still remains in my mind the shadow 
of doubt. What if it really does make a difference No, this is 
too vital to me to risk in any way. I'll knock wood and make 
sure and I blush to state, I do.” 


Another very common belief is that it i3 unlucky to 
light three cigarettes with one match. Several have 
proved to their own satisfaction that there is something 
in this tabu. 


“Many people are superstitious of lighting three cigarettes on 
one match. I have even seen some throw away a good smoke if 
two others had already been lighted on the same match, and I 
have even been with several companions who would go without 
smoking if there happened to be only one light among them all. 
At first, I placed little stock in this superstition, and never de- 
clined the fatal third light when it was offered to me. I con- 
sidered it to be as groundless a fear as such others including the 
breaking of a mirror, and attending a party of thirteen. But 
here are several personal experiences which have happened to 
me in the last two years which I firmly attribute to the fact that 
a short time before I smoked one of the three cigarettes lit by one 
match. Whether or not my experiences were due to this fact is a 
question entirely left to the reader..... 

“While in San Francisco two summers ago with my brother 
and a friend, we drew out three cigarettes and I lit them all on 
one match. It was during the time of the Exposition and we 
were in the fair grounds. Just after lighting the cigarettes I 
noticed by the clock in the Tower of Jewels, that it was a quarter 
after five, and soon we all started back to the hotel at which 
we were staying. Upon arriving there, the head porter informed 
me that, due to a mixing in our trunk checks with those of an- 


252 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


other party, our trunks had just left for Los Angeles. It was 
with much difficulty that we finally got them back. After this 
we found that they had left San Francisco on the five-fifteen 
train which was quite a coincidence with the fact that it was 
exactly the same time at which we had lighted our fatal smokes. 
Last fall just before taking my train to Boston, I smoked a third 
cigarette. I missed the train and, in driving up in an automobile, 
we were thrown from the car and I broke my arm.” 


“T was not superstitious. In fact I loved to laugh at people 
who were. Whenever I had a chance I walked under a ladder 
just to tease those who were so inclined. But now I have one | 
(and only one) superstition. It all happened at a flying station. A 
friend of mine was up in a plane flying rather conservatively 
round the station. Suddenly his plane nosed down and to every- 
body’s horror went into a tail-spin at an altitude of two hundred 
feet. As he was so low he had no time to come out of the spin, 
and as a result crashed. The next day I went over to the 
hospital to see him. He was just regaining consciousness and he 
said to me, ‘Why did I ever light three cigarettes with one match. 
Somebody told me to blow out the match, and use a new one for 
the third fellow’s cigarette, but I just laughed’. But ‘never again.’ 
From that time on I never use one match for three lights and I 
think I never will as long as I live. Whenever I have occasion to 
give three men lights at once I always see my friend’s plane the 
minute after it crashed and I use two matches.” 


It is impossible to trace the origin of many of these 
superstitions, but it is characteristic to seek some ex- 
planation. There are several offered for the three cigar- 
ette tabu. One goes back to the Boer War, where two 
cigarettes could be lighted by the English soldier easily 
enough, but the time required to light the third made 
the presence of the men known to the enemy and thus ; 
proved fatal. It is typical of the study of all folk- 
customs for one to seek an explanation after a practice 
has long been in existence. There is seldom any way to 
prove that the real origin coincides with the derived one. 


Social Origins and Social Continutties 253 


Lighting three cigarettes is a comparatively new tabu, 
but it is impossible to know the source or the reason of 
its origin. The writer of the next theme feels sure 
that he knows the beginning of the belief: 


“ ... Another explainable superstition in which I believe is 
that you must never light three cigars, cigarettes or such things 
on a match. On two occasions in the last couple of months some- 
one has done it in my car. In both cases we had tire trouble 
before getting home. I might also say that the tires were not 
old. The explanation of this superstition is that in the Russian 
Church, there is a service in which there are three candles. It is 
absolutely necessary that they be lit with the same match. For 
this reason it is almost sacrilege in the mind of some that three 
things are lighted on a match.” 


The strengthening of a belief, formerly scorned, by 
the untoward occurrences resulting from a failure to 
carry out some practice is illustrated in the next: 


“Until two years ago, I hadn’t the least superstition in the 
world. Thirteen was as lucky a number as any of them, and I 
think I am still quite sane, although I have slept in broad moon- 
light many a night. As I was saying, two years ago I was 
changed. I went for a short cruise with a friend of mine on his 
schooner yacht. This boat was originally a merchant-man in 
coastwise trade about New England. My friend wishes to keep 
the boat as much like the old as possible, and some of the old 
customs were carried out with ridiculous seriousness. One of 
these customs was that every man, coming up from:below, should 
salute the quarter deck. This custom originated, I think, with 
the old caravel that carried a Crucifix on the poop. At any rate, 
we all did it with somewhat of a smile, until one day, when three 
of us came up together, two saluted but the third was carrying 
some lanterns and omitted to do so. We jollied him a little about 
it, and then went over to the rail, and sat down. The guilty one 
leaned back against the stay of one of the davits, gazed at the 
quarter deck and said, ‘It’s all bunkum.’ With that the stay 
parted, the man went overboard, and was picked up again with 
not a little difficulty. That coincidence seemed to affect me very 


254 Social Origins and Social Continwties 


seriously. Perhaps it was the only time on the trip that the 
salute had been omitted, the only time that anyone had said 
anything against it, and the only time that anyone fell over- 
board. At any rate, I have never since omitted to at least bow 
(sic.) the head, when I came up from below, on any boat big 
enough to claim a quarter deck.” 


The desire to find the cause of “a change of luck,” 
the post hoc propter hoc theme, often shows a super- 
stition in the making: 


“It was during the middle of my Freshman year at High School 
that I noticed that my grades in the weekly ‘exams’ took a 
sudden drop. Study as hard as I would, I could not raise my 
low average. I could not account for this drop, for I studied 
just as hard as ever. Now I am not what you might call a 
superstitious fool; but I could not help going backward in my 
mind and searching for some recent event or change of habit that 
could possibly coincide with the beginning of my change from 
a high to a low grade. It was not long before I discovered the 
desired coincidence. I had up to the date of my ‘drop’ been 
riding to school by the subway train. But on the very Friday I 
had received my first low grade I had met a friend with whom I 
had ridden to school on a surface car. As I found this route 
shorter and more convenient I continued to use it, and was still 
using it at the time of this strange discovery. On the very next 
day I returned to the subway route and the very next Friday 
my grade rose from a ‘50’ of the previous week to a ‘90’. 

“A foolish coincidence, you will say; but it has influenced my 
actions in spite of myself. Every day, I go out determined to 
try the surface cars just for the fun of it, but some unseen in- 
stinctive force impels me to seek the subway route. Even now, 
while attending , | walk every day a distance of almost 
half a mile to get a subway train, rather than take the surface 
car which runs right by my house. But every now and then I 
meet some friends, who also attend the same college and live 
on the same street; and I am compelled for companionship’s 
sake to ride with them when they take the surface car. Invariably 
on such a day I have poor luck in all my work. For instance, 
I often upset apparatus in my chemistry laboratory when I ride 





Social Origins and Social Continutties 255 


on the subway; but the damage is never so great as when I use 
the surface route. What would you call such a coincidence?” 


One man is in doubt about the scientific facts behind 
superstition, but he feels “there is something in it.” 


“I do not carry any charms, but I do observe many traditions, 
most of which I do not believe in at all but some of which I do 
believe have a basis of fact. For instance, the belief that it is 
dangerous to sail on a vessel on which animals refuse to sail 
seems to have some foundation in the superior instincts of 
animals. Although it seems unreasonable to suppose that the 
animals have the power to foretell danger such has often been the 
case.” 


In the stress of the examination period there is a long 
list of actions carried out that are believed to bring 
success. The most common of these is wearing a par- 
ticular piece of clothing, usually a neck-tie. The paper 
following illustrates this type of belief and its explana- 
tion in the mind of the student: 


“Although the average person of today professes not to believe 
in superstitions, there are few who do not have some little 
peculiarities. And it is my belief that they are really worthy 
of the trust bestowed in them. For example when I was taking 
my entrance examinations I had one necktie tattered, spattered 
and worn, but which, in spite of these defects, I always wore. 
Now whether the success which this necktie brought was due to 
the divine powers, I am really in doubt; but I do know that with- 
out it, J would never have succeeded so well. But as I look at the 
situation now I consider that it was not the powers of the necktie 
that carried with it success, but the fact that I trusted to the 
powers, although not present. It gave me confidence. And 
confidence is a factor that cannot be lacking in such a case. 
This, I believe, is what superstition does for us.” 


The effort necessary in athletic contests or in exam- 
inations is seen in the following practice, by no means 
uncommon: 


256 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


“Though I possess nothing that I should consider a special 
charm, such as a lucky stone, a rabbit’s foot, or the like, yet there 
is a certain procedure to which I have resorted on some occasions, 
which I feel influences the course of events during that day. That 
is: going to chapel every day on which I am to take part in 
something that I am particularly anxious to make successful. It 
may be sacrilegious to term this a superstition, for to some it 
may seem a mere touch of religious spirit which prompts me to 
attend morning chapel. I admit, however, that my mind tends 
rather towards a superstitious than a religious feeling in so doing. 
...At any rate, it has appeared on several occasions as if 
chapel was the cause of setting in motion various happy occur- 
rences to me ...I have found it beneficial to attend chapel on 
any morning in which I am to take part in some track meet or 
am taking some examination.” 


Professional athletes, as a class, are perhaps the most 
superstitious people in the modern world. The college 
athlete does not escape. The commonest belief is that 
bad luck follows washing the clothes of the team. 
Those coaches who do not sympathize with this supersti- 
tion have the very greatest difficulty in inducing mem- 
bers of a team to put on new, or even clean, clothes just 
before or during a contest. “It washcs away luck,” the 
accumulation of weeks of practice. The following state- 
ment is only one of many which have been received. 

“Another superstition which I believe in is that of never wash- 
ing running pants from one years end to the other. There is a 
saying that if a man has his track pants washed during the season 
he will do poorly in the next meet. This superstition, I think, is 
believed by most runners for they all wear trousers which are 
dirty.” 

A good illustration of contagious magic and its efficacy 
is shown in the following: 

“In the track meets at school I used to wear an old red jersey 


which I borrowed because so far as I knew the wearer had never 
lost an event. After winning over twenty events with the thing 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 257 


I lent it to someone to wear in arace. During its absence I found 
I had to run a race also. [I lost the race and the wearer won 
his. The race I lost was the only one I had lost in three years 
and the race the wearer of the jersey won was the only one he 
had ever won. This proves the value of the jersey.” 


A second, expressing the same idea, follows: 


“One of the beliefs which I hold is that wearing the clothing 
of another will give me some of that person’s attributes. Thus 
when I am going to play tennis, I avoid taking any clothing 
belonging to my brother, which I ordinarily borrowed quite 
frequently, since he is less efficient at tennis than I.” 


One man admits, 


“T write the name of a big leaguer on my baseball suit and 
the name of a great football player on my football togs. I 
suppose that I do this in order to keep my ideal in my mind and 
I shall be more like him.” 


Rain is considered necessary for the success in athletics 
of one of our famous preparatory schools: 


“There is a belief, extremely prevalent among X—— men in 
this part of the country that the old school can better defeat 
her dearest rival on a rainy day than when the weather is 
pleasant. I received my introduction to this superstition at the 
final mass meeting preparatory to the foot-ball game with Y——. 
The last year’s football captain who was addressing the school 
had come to the end of his harangue, when with a heart-rending 
appeal to his audience he cried, ‘For God’s sake, fellows, pray for 


rain.’ ” 


The fetishes, amulets, and charms of athletes are 
legion. Many of these are selected on the basis of post 
hoc propter hoc: 


“At the suggestion of my Professor, I hope to interest you with 
an amusing experience which happened to my brother when he 
was in college. The first year my brother was in college he made 
the track team. On the day of his first collegiate race, in taking 
off his clothes he stuck his scarf-pin in the jersey of his running 


258 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


suit. When he got out on the track, he found that he had 
neglected to leave the pin in the locker building. So fastening 
it more securely in his jersey, he wore it through the race. He 
won the race. Ever after he wore the pin and was never beaten 
in the quarter-mile race, which was his event, during his four 
years in college till the intercollegiates of his senior year. That 
day he forgot to bring the scarf-pin with him and failed to score. 

“My brother was an intimate friend of W——, of Princeton 
football fame. Last year just before Princeton played Yale, my 
brother sent the pin to W——, telling him of its history, and 
asking W—— to wear it in the Yale game. The Princeton man 
did and you are familiar with the remarkable showing that 
W—— made. In the Dartmouth game, however, Sam forgot to 
fasten the pin to his jersey and failed to distinguish himself on 
that day. When Princeton played Harvard, W—— took pains 
to see that the pin was on his person. The game made him the 
biggest football man of the year. The pin was a piece of Mexican 
jewelry which my brother had purchased in Atlantic City. It 
was said to have been made by a Pueblo Indian nearly a hundred 
years ago.” 


“In the Connecticut State golf championship at Greenwich last 
June, a very strange thing happened. On entering the tourna- 
ment, I decided to wear my small rabbit-foot watch-charm. Fol- 
lowed by luck for eighteen holes I was able to qualify in the first 
sixteen. However on the last hole I lost my charm. In the first 
round, I could easily have won had it not been for that last hole 
where my opponent beat me because of a lost ball. All of my 
matches in that tournament were lost for me in poor luck and 
bad playing on the last hole. Now the person who found the 
watch-charm, it happened to be one of my friends, had been 
trying for the last five years for that title. It may be a coin- 
cidence that he won all his matches on that last hole and won 
his title with my rabbit’s foot. Would he give it back to me? 
Certainly not, and he doesn’t believe in superstitions either.” 


The personal idiosyncrasies of the baseball player can 
often be explained by superstition: 


“I have no fetish, but am very superstitious, especially while 
playing baseball. During a game, I always carry a penny in the 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 259 


leg of my pants. I place it in the roll which is made by rolling 
the edge of the leg and the top of the stocking down over the 
knee. This roll is a protection for the knee. I believe that this 
act brings good luck, because any time that I miss carrying it, 
our team loses. I am also in the habit of touching second base 
when my side retires from the field. By this act, I hope that, 
when I come to bat, I shall reach this base. Of course, this does 
not happen all the time, but it does in most cases. The last 
game I took part in, I succeeded in reaching second base four 
out of five times. I am so accustomed to touch the base that if I 
forget, I lose all confidence when at bat.” 


The idea of mana or power within an object and the 
care taken to preserve its efficacy is clearly shown in the 
following paragraph: 


“For several years I carried with me a charm which I half- 
believed was bringing me good luck. It was a French copper 
penny of the year 1777, which I myself picked up in the drive- 
way of my home ...I now reserve it for special occasions, in 
order not to exhaust its power.” 


An excellent example of the power of a phylactery is 
shown in the following “finely written” theme: 


“Gentle reader, listen to my tale, and after it is ended, think me 
not simple, or crazy or foolish. I come from a family whose 
history may be traced back many years before Christ. Our 
dwelling place has been for the last several centuries in the lands 
of Lebanon, where the mighty cedars communicate with the 
heavens. Up to a few centuries ago we were a ruling family and 
controlled many lands in the Orient. Of late we have been 
subjected to the ‘irony of fate’ and have lost our renowned control. 
We now await the day, which at last has probably arrived, when 
our people freed from the control of the people of the ‘Crescent 
Tyrant’ will call upon us to rule them once again. 

“Since the death of Christ, gentle reader, there has been 
handed down from generation to generation, a certain family 
treasure, the charm of which has caused our family to retain it 
these many, many years. This treasure is made up of a silver 
chain upon which are fastened phylacteries which have for their 


260 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


content some wood of the Cross on which our Savior was cruci- 
fied. As yet these phylacteries have never been opened and 
probably never will be. Many are te stories of charms con- 
nected with this treasure, but it is my purpose to deal with what 
I have experienced only. It is only a few years ago that my 
father received this charm at the time my eldest brother was 
sick with typhoid fever. Doctors had no hope for his recovery. 
As soon as this charm was placed about his neck he began to re- 
cover. Today he is quite well. More recently a little nephew was 
seized with infantile paralysis. The Doctors predicted his doath. 
His mother, my sister, was nearly crazed. She sent after the 
charm and it was given her. She placed it about the boy’s neck 
and he recovered. ‘Toaay he is not a cripple as other survived 
victims of that disease, but is perfectly well. Of recent date my 
brother went to war as aviator. He participated in many battles. 
Once his plane fell one thousand feet. His three comrades were 
killed; he alone survived. Today he is safe at home. Since this 
charm came into the family we have had good luck and we all 
believe that it is due to it alone. This is my story, gentle reader, 
believe as you may.” 


There is a type of actions which ought not, perhaps, 
to be classed as superstitions. A feeling of pleasure fol- 
lowing the successful completion of a test is the main 
characteristic of this kind of belief. It might almost be 
called a variety of divination, as showing the will of the 
gods of fate towards the individual. The most common 
of these is one that I have never seen mentioned, the 
desire to reach a certain point or complete a piece of 
work before something else happens: 


“My superstitions now are limited to things that I really know 
are not true, and yet have such a grip on me that I observe 
them and probably do believe them although I do not realize it. 

If I have something in mind that I hope will happen, and 
chance i» think of it when walking along the street where a 
large clock is visible, I select a certain point, say a tree two 
hundred feet off, and try to reach the tree before the hands of 
the clock have moved a minute. For instance, day before 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 261 


yesterday I came out of X—— Hall at half a minute of twelve, 
thinking of something I was very desirous of obtaining. Mentally, 
I said, if I reach Y—— Hall before the clock strikes twelve my 
chances of getting the thing will be materially increased, and, if 
‘I failed to get there before the ringing, things would not be very 
hopeful. I got there just before the bell rang and felt far easier 
in my mind than if the contrary had occurred although by all the 
laws of logic and science I know that there is nothing to it.” 


Another man “runs to get past certain places before a 
car gets parallel with me.” Flipping a coin to decide a 
thing is only one of many such acts carried out in order 
to reach a decision. These, according to the savage, would 
be acts of divination. The following theme shows the 
same idea, and also illustrates the characteristic fact that 
many of the superstitious practices disappear as one 
grows older: 


“Every person has undoubtedly had, et one time or another, 
some peculiarity of temperament which is really harmless even 
though it may appear strange. People, denying any oddity on 
their part, are either unconscious of a peculiarity characteristic 
of themselves, or are too ashamed to disclose their acts. -Al- 
though I can’t recall any queer doings of mine at the present time, 
except that I blow into a glass before using it, a sanitary precau- 
tion not an idiosyncrasy, still I did have some superstitions only a 
few years ago. 

“Often, during the early years of my High School life, I would 
leave a room after an examination quite undecided as to the 
grade probably earned. Then, coming to some stairs, I would 
decide to let Fate settle my question and would say to myself, 
‘Now, if in walking up these stairs, my right foot is the first one 
to be placed upon the landing of the floor above, then I have 
received a grade as high as I expect. If my left foot, however, is 
first, then my grade will be lower than the one expected.’ This 
caused me to leave the outcome to Fate, and Fate, having de- 
cided, I would consider that incident closed until I did receive 
my grade in that examination. During the last part of my High 
School life, however, I didn’t play the game fair, for the stairs 


262 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


were well-known to me and I always knew beforehand that the 
right foot would be the first one to reach the landing of the 
floor above. 

“Another idiosyncrasy of mine was one by which I decided if 
anything, of which I was uncertain, was right or wrong. Here 
Fate would act in the medium of a long word probably dis- 
played on some sign hanging in a store-window. Looking at the 
long word I would say, ‘Now if it is right, there will be an even 
number of letters in the word; but if it is wrong, there will be an 
odd number of letters.’ Here, again, this system worked very well 
until I started to cheat, and then I would quickly discard any 
word which was not composed of an even number of letters. 
Even now I sometimes catch myself unconsciously performing 
either of these queer things, but it is through force of habit that 
I do this, for no longer is there any superstition attached to my 
actions.” 


The numerically-inclined mind comes out in several] 
cases. Superstition may or may not be included. In 
the following theme, “my car’ makes the trip “lucky” 
and it seems to be a superstition: 


“The only pet superstition that I have is that of observing the 
numbers on street cars and subway trains. On every line in 
Boston and on the street car lines in Nashua, N. H., I have long 
ago selected certain cars, one on each system, that I call ‘my car.’ 
If I come across or ride upon that particular car I consider that 
I am lucky and good luck will follow: 


Cambridge Subway, Car 0600, 
Scollay Square and Harvard Sq. 5280, 
Dudley St. and Harvard Sq. 1040, 
Nashua, N. H. 2271, 


Tarrytown, N. Y., etc., ete. 


I don’t deeply believe in this but I enjoy it and have a really 
complicated system that I can and would like to discuss. 

(Here follows his name and address) 
I am a New Hampshire Yankee and enjoy the collection of such 
statistics. Have you some which I may see?” 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 263 


The next, the only one given here which is not a Fresh- 
man theme, was written by a member of my own class 
and shows the danger to which superstitions may go, a 
tendency to pass into a phobia. I checked up the state- 
ments of the writer and found them to be true. Further- 
more, I was able to point out to the student the very 
great danger to which he was exposed in giving way to 
this superstition. I warned him that it might lead to a 
psychopathic hospital. 


“About six or seven years ago, I was engaged in a game of cards 
with one of my friends. We had already played three games 
before and I decided to cut matters short. My friend, however, 
remonstrated with me and urged me to play ‘just one more’—a 
fourth game and I yielded. The next day my grandfather died 
and ever since I have been possessed of a sickening, foolish dread 
for the number four. This superstition, if such I may term it, 
has taken the shape of several forms. Never since that time have 
I gone to bed without first making certain that the minute-hand 
of my watch registered some other minute than four or any of its 
multiples. If, as luck would have it, it should hover covertly 
around the four or eight or twelve or whatnot mark, I would wait, 
sometimes shivering in the cold, until the delinquent hand had 
moved along to the five or nine mark as the case might be. 

“Similarly, in all my lecture and reading notes, the number four 
has played its part, and so persistent has its effect been upon 
me that at times it has almost driven me to despair. Thus, in 
taking down a sentence, if four (or any of its multiples) words 
chanced to occur between any two successive marks of punctua- 
tion, I have inevitably added the word ‘dear’ to make certain 
that the number of words was five and not the hated four. 
Numerous instances of this can be found throughout my notes, 
and, if the reader i: interested, a perusal of my notes in this 
course will at once indicate this.” 


An inherent pleasure in balance and rhythm is a 
frequent subject of superstitious beliefs. If a handker- 
chief is carried in one trousers pocket, another is carried 


264 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


in the opposite pocket; a pencil in one pocket is balanced 
by another on the other side. The following essay illus- 
trates the necessity of rhythm in the mind of the writer: 


“T have a peculiar little superstition which may k= of interest 
to you, not only because of its seeming triviality, but also because 
of its oddness. It is the superstition that I must not, when 
tapping in rhythm or beating time to music, stop other than on an 
even beat, except that the odd beat, if I stop on one, be in a 
multiple of three. I often, when driving an automobile, realize 
that I am beating time while humming and I have the feeling 
that something will go wrong if, after my tune is over, I stop 
beating on an odd beat. If I do stop on an odd beat, I feel 
compelled to start drumming anew, and this time I must stop on 
an odd beat, in order to make the whole number of beats an even 
number. 

“This feeling probably seems to you too trivial to mention, 
but I seem strongly compelled by some unknown force, to follow 
its dictates. It is sometimes very annoying, when I am with older 
people aud I am called upon to speak in conversation, for I keep 
on counting in my mind and often badly mix up my words and 
juggle my meaning. I think that this kind of petty superstition 
is very foolish and I am now trying to overcome the one which 
I have tried to describe.” 


A very superstitious class of our population is that 
composed of gamblers. There is a very large number 
of acts to induce good luck and keep away bad luck in 
games of chance. One theme on this topic is given, but 
it is typical of many. The “hunch” is not a new phe- 
nomenon, in spite of its modern name. 

“Have you ever had a hunch, or do you know what a hunch 
is? This little expression is one of the untranslatable words of 
the vernacular of the average American youth. The only word in 
our language that comes anywhere near translating it is the word 
‘presentiment.’ I frankly admit that I am a firm believer in 
hunches, in fact I don’t believe I would be able to get along at 


all if I didn’t have them to keep me going. The time I depend 
most on hunches is in playing cards, for example, when playing 


Social Origins and Social Continuwities 265 


‘Red Dog,’ a game much indulged in by Freshmen. I have lost 
heavily due to my desire to play the game rather than to wait 
until a hunch warned me that I was going to win. This is my 
only superstition and one that I would hate to give up.” 


An interesting type of fetish is some sign drawn beside 
the signature or at the top of letters and other written 
work. Not long ago, I was explaining this type of fetish 
to an anthropological friend dining with me at a Boston 
club. I was telling him of one man, long since graduated 
from college, who placed a cross at the top of every page 
of his examination books and on every letter and note 
book. At that very moment this man, now a successful 
lawyer, whom I had not seen for ten years, came up to 
our table, and 1 explained to him the subject of our 
conversation. Straightway he produced his pocket mem- 
orandum and there, even now, was the cross at the top 
of each page. A paragraph from a theme shows much 
the same idea. 

“My fetish or ‘hoosh-baby’ is the conventionalized sketch of 
the bird drawn below, which for certain indefinite but potent 
associations it has for me, is a power for good. I use it also asa 
signature or sign of ownership.” 

The last theme shows that the writer is, after all, 
reconciled to the fact that he was born on I'riday and 
is therefore superstitious: 

“I have known of many persons in my brief existence, who 
would never think of starting anything on I'riday whether it be 
setting out on a journey or making jelly. Now I was so unfor- 
tunate as to commence my life on Friday, and thus I have set 
out with a superstitious stigma on me which, I am glad to say, 
though it has never handicapped me to my knowledge, has always 
made me cautious,—extremely cautious. Although I realize that 
superstitions are ridiculous I never fail to carry out their arbitrary 


regulations as to picking up pins pointing towards one, never 
getting out of bed on any other side than is one’s custom, look- 


266 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


ing at the new moon over the right shoulder, and so on. One 
who does not conform to all these small restrictions can with 
difficulty realize the watchfulness that doing so entails. A super- 
stitious person must be always on his guard: if he slips up the 
whole day’s adventures crash around him and he wants to kick 
himself. I scarcely mind it after all; in fact, I really like it: it 
makes one so exact.” 

I do not think that this subject should be taken too 
seriously. One case only was found where the bad 
effects of superstition might lead to the development of 
a phobia. Disregarding many of the superstitious-like 
practices as simple appeals to the play instinct, “stunts” 
only, there are others which are distinctly superstitious. 
The point which comes out most clearly in the present 
study is that these are found in abundance in an aca- 
demic background where they do not rightfully belong 
and where one might think they would be notable for 
their absence. The fact is inevitable, however, that we 
do find superstition throughout all classes in the mod- 
ern world. This goes far to prove the thesis of a social and 
mental continuity with a past rooted in savagery and 
magic. 


orn WO be 


Cows 


1 


—_ 


— 


REFERENCES 


Boas, 1914. Espinosa, 1921. 

Wissler, 1923: 121-124. 
Lowie, 1917: 67. 

Wissler, 1923: 116-117. 

Elliot Smith, 1915 and 
other writings. 

Ferguson, 1918. 

Perry, 1923a: 101. Also see 
1923. 

Boas, 1906, and in other 
places. 
Wallas, 1921a: 5-6, 366. 

“The Villager,” Nov. 24, 
1923. 


. Babbitt, 1924: 23, 239. 
. Boas, 1911. 


II 


McDougall, 1920. 

Robinson, 1921: 65. 

Ellwood, 1917: 188. Hayes, 
1919: 218. Ginsberg, 1922: 
Chap. I. 


. Dunlap, 1922. 

. Wissler, 1923: 260-265. 

. Kroeber, 1923: 58~70. 

. Boas, 1911: 24-29, Chap. I. 
. Babbitt, 1924: 118. 


Kroeber, 1923: 81-83. 


. Giles, 1911: 119, quoted in 


Lowie, 1917: 39. 
Kroeber, 1923: 76-79. 


CHAPTER I 
. Robinson, 1921: 83-84. 12) 
. Kroeber, 1917: 210, 177. 13. 
. Boas, 1916. 
. Ripley, 1899: 83-84. 14, 
. Herodotus, Book II, Chap- 15. 
ter 2 (Rawlinson transla- 
tion). 16. 
East, 1923: 128. ive 
Wheeler, 1923: 5, 17. 
Wallas, 1921: 16~-17. 18. 
Lowie, 1920: 169. Tylor, 
1889. Morgan, 1877: Chap. 19. 
iF 20. 
Kroeber, 1923: §102. 
Goldenweiser, 1922: 302. 21 
. Read, 1904: 117-118. 22 
CHAPTER 
. Ellwood, 1917: 313-14, Spen- 12. 
cer, 1906, Part IT, Chap. 13: 
ITT. 14. 
Wallas, 1921a: 40, 51, 36. 
Dealy, 1909: 75-76. 
Small, 1905: 428. 15 
Giddings, 1922: 90-91. 16 
Bury, Editor, 1923: 22. 17 
Goldenweiser, 1922: 292- 18 
301. 19 
Kroeber, 1923: 184-185. 20. 
. Ripley, 1899: 482. 21 
. Semple, 1911: 540-541. 
. Spinden, 1923. 22. 


268 Social Origins and Social Continuities 
23. Pyle, 1915. 31. Hartland, 1914: 15. 
24. Pyle, 1918a. 1918b. 32. Kellogg, 1923: 91. 
25. Hunter, 1922. 33. Lévy -Bruhl, 1918, 1923. _ 
26. Garth, 1921. Goldenweiser, 1911, 1922: 
27. Barnes, 1924. 380-389. 
28. Fischer, quoted in Lowie, 34. Dewey, 1902. 
1923: 297. 35. Slosson, E. E. Newspaper 
29. Spinden, 1924. article dated Washington, 
30. Hayes, 1919: 241. March 11, 1923. 
CHAPTER III 
General: 8. Howitt, 1884: 451, n. 
Lowie, 1920. 9. Howitt, 1904: 524-562. 
Van Gennep, 1909. 10. Fletcher, 1911: 128-133. 
Webster, 1908. 1897. 
Westermarck, 1921: Vol. 1. 11. Coorington, 1891: 265. 
Frazer, 1913-15. 12. Rivers, 1912. Golden- 
1. Dewey, 1902. weiser, 1922: 384-386. 
2. Thomas, 1909: 13-18. 13. Quoted in Clodd, 1905: 
3. Fletcher, 1911: 115-117. 31-32. 
4. Newell, 1902. 14, Frazer, 1886. 
5. Brinton, 1889: 93-98. 15. Gerould, 1908: 163. 
6. Parsons, 1915. 16. Durkheim, 1915: 399-403. 
7. Spencer and Gillen, 1899: Goldenweiser, 1922: 366- 
215-17. 371. 
CHAPTER IV 
General: 5. Bogoras, 1904-09: 577. 
Westermarck, 1921. 6. Howitt, 1904. Spencer and 
Howard, 1904: Vol. I. Gillen, 1899. Frazer, 1910. 
Lowie, 1920. 7. Swanton, 1906. 
Maine, 1861. 8. Rivers, 1924: 97. 
Rivers, 1924. 9. Myers, 1908: 153. ; 
1. For excellent discussion of 10. Frazer, 1913-15: Pt. 1, Vol. 
sources, see Howard, 1904. 2, 268-271. 
2. Rivers, 1924: 79-80. 11. Gummere, 190la. 
3. Marett, 1920: 109, cited in 12. Murray, 1915. 
Ogburn, 1923: 151. 13. Frazer, 1918: Vol. I, 483- 


4 


. Boas, 1897: 358-359. 


441, 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 


269 


CHAPTER V 


General: 
Lowie, 1920. 
Goldenweiser, 1922. 
Rivers, 1924. 
1. Plato, The Laws, 
Giddings, 1922: 96. 
2. Herodotus, VIII, 144. 
Myers, 1908: 135. 


IV, 4. 


5. Goldenweiser, 1922: 288. 
Lowie, 1920: 137-145. 

6. Marett, 1912: 174-175. 

7. Dorsey, 1884: Chap. III. 

8. Mecklin, 1924. 

9.R. D. Skinner, in the 
“Independent”: Nov. 24, 
1923. 


3. Goldenweiser, 1922: 235- 10. Lowie, 1920: 338-339. 
236. 11. Boas, 1897. 
4. Peake, 1922. 
CHAPTER VI 
General: 7. Lowie, 1920: 397-398. 
Lowie, 1920. 8. Granger, 1911: 189. 
Goldenweiser, 1922. 9. Goitein, 1923. 
Rivers, 1924. 10. Marett, 1909: 102. 
Kroeber, 1910. 11. Marett, 1909: 85-141. 
Westermarck, 1906-1917. 12. Sumner, 1911: §691. 
Hobhouse, 1906. 13. Quoted in Harrison, 1912: 
1. Morgan, 1901. Golden- 95. 
weiser, 1922: 73-82. 14. Quoted in Lubbock, 1870: 
2. Markham, 1910, and other 258-259. 


authorities, including P. A. 


Means. 
3. Hanoteau, 1872-73. 
4. Dixon, 1905. 
5. Rivers, 1924: 
Perry, 1923, 1923a. 
6. Marett, 1912: 182. 


170-172. 


15. Matthews, 1899. 

16. McDougall, 1921: 

17. Parsons, 1915. 

18. McDougall, 1920: 364-365. 
1921: 219. 

19. Marrett, 1912: 237-239. 

20. Dewey, 1902. 


319. 


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GRANGER, F. 
1911 Historical Sociology, a Textbook of Politics. London. 
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1923 The Native Culture in the Marquesas. Bul. 9, Bishop 
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274 Social Origins and Social Continurties 


Hanorteavu, A., AND LETOURNEAUX, A. 
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1903 Prolegomena to the Study of the Greek Religion. Cam- 
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1914 Ritual and Belief. Studies in the History of Religion. 
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1919 Introduction to the Study of Sociology. New York. 
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1828 Plutarchus and Theophrastus on Superstitions. London. 
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1906 Morals in Evolution: a Study in Comparative Ethics. 
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1904 History of Matrimonial Institutions. 3 vols. Chicago. 
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1922 Relation of Degree of Indian Blood to Score on the 
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1900 A History of Politics. New York. 
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1923 Anthropology. New York. 


’ 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 275 


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1908 Homer and Anthropology: in Anthropology and the 
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1918 Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures. 
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1917 Culture and Ethnology. New York. 
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1920 The Group Mind; a Sketch of the Principles of Collec- 
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1885 The Patriarchal Theory. London. 
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1861 Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History 
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1909 The Threshold of Religion. London. 
1912 Anthropology. Home University Library. New York. 
1920 Psychology and Folk-lore. New York. 
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1910 The Incas of Peru. London. 
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1899 The Study of Ethics among the Lower Races: in Jour. 
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276 Social Origins and Social Continuities 


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1901 League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. New ed. 
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Murray, M. 
1915 Royal Marriages and Matrilineal Descent. Jour. Royal 
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Mypres, J. L. 

1908 Herodotus and Anthropology: in Anthropology and the 

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1902 Fairy-lore and Primitive Religion: in International 

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1923 Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original 

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Parsons, E. C. 

1915 Links between: Religion and Morality in Early Culture: 

in Am. Anth. (NS.), v. 17, p. 41-57. 
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1922 The English Village. The Origin and Decay of its Com- 

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1923 The Children of the Sun. London. 

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See Hibbert, 1828. 
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1915 The Mind of the Negro Child: in School and Society, 
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Pye, W. H., anv Cotttins, P. E. 

1918(a) The Mental and Physical Development of Rural 

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1918(b) A Study of the Mental and Physical Characteristics 
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Social Origins and Social Continuities 277 


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Sempte, E. C. 
1911 Influences of Geographical Environment. New York. 


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Smiru, G. Eu.ior. 
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Spencer, H. 
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SPINDEN, H. J. 
1923 Civilization and the Wet Tropics: in World’s Work. 
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1924 The Reduction of Mayan Dates: Papers of the Pea- 
body Museum, v. 6, no. 4. Cambridge. 


278 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


Srarckg, C. N. 
1889 The Primitive Family in Its Origin and Development. 
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Sumner, W. G. 
1911 Folkways. A Study of the Sociological Importance of 
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Swanton, J. R. 
1906 A Reconstruction of the Theory of Social Organization: 
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Tuomas, W. J. 

1907 Sex and Society. Studies in the Social Psychology of 
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1909 Source Book for Social Origins. Ethnological Materials, 
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Bibliographies for the Interpretation of Savage Society. 
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Tozzer, A. M. 
1907 A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacan- 
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1908 A Note on Star-lore Among the Navajo; in Jour. Am. 
Folk-Lore, v. 21, p. 28-32. 


Tytor, E. B. 
1889 On a Method of Investigating the Development of 
Institutions; Applied to Laws of Marriage and 
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Van Gennep, A. 


1909 Les rites de passage. Etude systematique des rites. 
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1923 No. 320. New York. 


Wa.ias, GRAHAM 
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Wesster, Hutton 
1908 Primitive Secret Societies. A Study in Early Politics 
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Social Origins and Social Continuities 279 


WESTERMARCK, E. A. 
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2 vols. London and New York. 
1921 The History of Human Marriage. 5th ed. 3 vols. 
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Wuee ter, W. M. 
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Wisster, CLARK 
1923 Man and Culture. New York. 
WoopwortH, R. 8S. 
1910 Racial Differences in Mental Traits: in Science. v. 31, 
p. 171-186. 


INDEX 


Acquired characteristics, 7 

Adolescence, its rites, 99-113 

Adoption, 160, 180, 185, 193 

Africa, government, 209-210, 
200 


Age groups, 100, 131, 189 
Agricultural peoples and sexual 
communism, 143 
American history and the Iro- 
quois, 205-207 
Ancestor worship, 125-126 
Animal and human society, 12- 
14, 36-38, 212 
Animal names, 186, 201 
as totems, 110-112 
Anthropoid apes and man, 64 
no promiscuity among, 145 
the family among, 127-128 
Archeology, study of, 1-2, 19- 
20, 122 
Aristocracy, 195, 210 
Associations, based on age and 
sex, 189-190 
see also Secret Society 
Australian tribes, 89, 99, 100, 
210-211 
group marriage, 139-140 
marriage classes, 160-162 
puberty rites, 101-102, 105- 
109 


sex totems, 95 
totemism, 186 
Avoidance, 150 
see also Parent-in-law tabu 
Barnes, on Nordic hypothesis, 
76, n 
Beowulf, sister’s son, 171 
Birth, rites at, 89-95 
Blood revenge, 217-218 
Boas, vii, 20 
Borough English, see Junior 
right, 


Brain, human, 37, 52 
weight and size, 64-65 
Bride price, 152-154 
purchase of, 151-154 
purchase and dowry, 153-154 
Brother-sister marriage, 156, 
208-209 


~ Buckle, 43 


Burial rites, 118-126 
by effigy, 121-122 
Cannibalism, 232-233 
Castes of India, 194 
Charity, modern works of, 30- 
32 


Chiefs, polygyny among, 149 
Polynesia, 200, 210 
Iroquois, 203 
see also Leadership 
Child, introduction of, 93 
education of, 98-99 
Child-bearing, 91 
Child and the savage, 230 
China, name exogamy in, 159 
Chukchee, 46 
tale of fear of incest, 156-157 
Church, rites of Christian, 91, 
113, 126, 159-160, 219-220, 224 
Churching of women, 91 
Circumcision, 23 
and puberty, 102-103 
Civilization and progress, 28 
and the savage, 2, 236-237 
Clan, 158, 183-187 
varieties of structure, 183-185 
priority of clan and tribe, 184 
Iroquois, 201-202 
Classes, see Social Classes 
Classificatory system of rela- 
tionship terms, 140-144 
Climate and environment, 47, 
49-51 


280 


0 
‘ 
h 
{ 





Social Origins and Social Continuties 


Collective responsibility, see 
Joint liability 
Composition in law, 219 
Concentration and ‘the savage, 
59-60 
Concubinage, 144 
Confederacy, Iroquois, 189, 201- 
207 
Conservatism, 83-84 
Contract theory of society, 35 
Convergent evolution of cul- 
ture, 18 
Corn culture of the American 
Indian, 21 
Council, governing, 725, 210 
Cousins, 152, 166-167 
Couvade, 92-93, 22, 135 
Crimes, 218-219 
Criteria of progress, 28-33 
Cross-cousin marriage, 166-167, 
152, 163, 176 
Cultural history of man, 4-5 
Culture, a modern thing, 65-66 
Dakota system of relationship 
terms, 141 
Data for social studies, 2 
Death, ideas of and rites of, 
113-126 
explanation of, 115 
Democracy, 193, 199, 205, 209- 
212, 236 
Descent, 168-174 
Despotism, 215 
in Polynesia, 200 
Dewey, on the savage, 82-83, 
87-88, 238-239 
Diffusion of ideas, 18-28 
Divergencies in cultures, causes 
of, 40-52 
Divination, 219 
at birth, 94-95 
of college students, 260 
Divorce, 155 
Dreams, reality of, 115-116 
the other world, 124-125 
Dual chieftanship, 200 
Dual organization, see Moiety 
and Phratry 


281 


Durkheim, on exogamy, 165 
on mourning, 123-124 
East, on miscegenation, 11 
Economic basis of marriage, 
TALON ALG 
Economics and environment, 47 
Education, 98-99 
Emotional life, 60-61 
Endogamy, 157, 167 
Environment, 42-52 
and stature, 6-7 
Eskimo, 46, 50, 95 
polyandry among, 146-147 
Ethical codes, 99 
and environment, 45 
Ethics, 230-239 
Ethnocentrism, 188-189 
Eugenics, 6 
Evolution, physical, 3, 17 
physical and cultural, 6-14 
Evolutionary ideas on _ the 
family, 1384-135 
Exogamy, 157-166, 185, 187 
Iroquois, 202 
explanations of, 162-166 
Family, 127-178 
anterior to human society, 
127-129 
cohesion of group, 213 
Fatherhood, determination of, 
in polyandrous families, 147- 
148 


Fear of evil spirits, 86 
and tabu, 234 
Female infanticide, 150, 232 
and polyandry, 147 
Female prerogatives, Pueblo 
peoples, 173-174 
Iroquois, 168-169 
Khasi, 169 
Ferguson, on similarities of 
culture, 23 
Fetishes, 257 
of college students, 242-243 
eRe of birds and of man, 9- 


Folk- lore, 
136-138 

Folk-tales, diffusion of, 20-21 
psychic unity seen in, 25-27 


study of survivals, 


282 Social Origins and Social Continutties 


Food tabus, 57 

Frazer, on tabu, 222 

Freud, on auscean 165 

Galley Hill man, 

Galton, on genius, "$0 

Garth, on intelligence tests, 75, 
Gerontocracy, 210, 212 
Giddings, on the racial school, 


Giles, on the Chinese civiliza- 
tion, 67 
Goitein, on the ordeal and 
oath, 220 
Goldenweiser, on totemism, 185 
Gosse, 117-118 
Government, 199-201 
democracy in lowest groups, 
199 
Africa, 209-210 
Incas, 207-209 
Iroquois, 201-207 
Polynesia, 210 
Greeks, customs of the, 112- 
113, 148, 150, 184 
birth, 94-95 
descent, 170 
tabu, 223 
Group-marriage, 139-144, 135 
and relationship terms, 143— 
144 


Group mind, 53-54 
Group solidarity, 181, 235-236 
Guardian spirit, 109- 112 
see also Totemism 
Hamlet and the succession of 
rule, 171 
Hawaiian system of relation- 
ship terms, 141-142 
Head deformation, 97 
Hebrews, marriage customs, 
175-177 
marriage by service, 152 
levirate, 137 
Heliolithic culture, 22-25 
Herodotus, on kinship organ- 
izations, 181 
on speech, 7-9 
Hesiod, on. tabu, 230 
Hooton, viii 


Horde, the man, 38-39, 212 

Horse in America, 21-22 

Howard, on arguments against 
promiscuity, 145 

Howitt, on Australian puberty 
rites, 104, 105-109 

Human and animal society, 12~ 
14, 36-38, 212 

Human soul, belief in, 114-117 

Hunter, on intelligence tests, 
74-75, 

Hunting peoples, 87-88, 143 


Hybrids, intelligence tests of, 
74-75 


see also Miscegenation 
Illness and death, 117-118 
Immigration, 31 
syitieyatint 8 changes in char- 
acter of, 5 
esi 168-164, 145 
Incas, government of, 207-209 
Incest, 162-164, 237, 11-12 
universal tabu against, 155- 
160 
supposedly evil effects of, 
163-164 
India, castes of, 194 
Khasi, female prerogatives, 
169 
Indian-white mixtures, intelli- 
gence of, 74-75 
Individual, réle of the, 39-40, 
53-54, 212, 213 
Industries and environment, 48 
Inheritance, social, 168 
seco also ‘Evolution, physical 
and cultural, 
Initiation rites, 100 
see also Adolescence, 
Instinct, 55-57 
Intellect, 62-84 
no increase in, 29-30 
Intelligence tests, 68-76 
oe Confederacy, 201-207, 
189 


exogamy among, 159 
female prerogatives, 168-169 
totemism, 186 
Jacob and his wives, 175-177 
Joint liability, 217-218 


eo 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Junior right, 172-173 
Kabyle democracy, 209-210 
Kellogg, on race mentality, 79 
Khasi, female prerogatives, 169 
’ Kingship, daughter’s husband, 
170-171 
sisters son, 171 
Kinship groups, 182-187, 180 
Kirgis, parent-in-law tabu, 175 
Kroeber, 47 
on development of culture, 5 
on intelligence tests, 69-72 
Kwakiutl, see Northwest Coast 
Lacandones of Guatemala, 59 
family life of, 130-131 
Language and environment, 48 
Law, 216-220 
absence of central authority, 
217 
Leadership, 212-216 
never held by a woman, 168 
see also Chiefs and Kingship 
Levirate, 1387-138 
in England, 165 
Lévy-Bruhl, on mental proc- 
esses, 80-82 
Life-token motive, 117 
Linguistic paleontology, 48 
Local groups, 181-182 
Lowie, viil 
on Crow Indians, 154 
on factors leading to plural- 
ity of husbands and wives, 
146 
on functions of government, 
200-201 
on the levirate, 138 
on puberty rites, 100 
Lubbock, on exogamy, 162 
on nuptial rites, 139 
McLennan, 134, 157-158 
Magic, 88, 227-228, 256 
and tabu, 222-223 
Maine, on the patriarchate, 133 
Mana, 213, 259 
and tabu, 223 
in a fountain pen, 226 


283 
Marett, on lack of privacy, 237- _ 
238 


on study of survivals, 136 
on tabu, 223 
Mariner, on the Tongans, 232 
Marquesans, 147 
Marriage, 127-178 
definition of, 132 
and environment, 46-47 
by capture, 150-151 
contract, 149-155 
by mutual consent, 154 
by service, 176 
rites, 154-155 
classes in Australia, 160-162 
Matriarchate, 134, 168-169 
Matrilineal groups, authority 
in, 213 
descent, 168-172 
Matrilocal residence, 173-174 
Maya culture, 23, 24, 77 
Melanesia, 109, 113-114, 
169 
cross-cousin marriage in, 167 
sociological fatherhood in, 
148 
secret society, 190 
Men’s house, 109, 130, 131, 190 
Menstruation, horror of, 101 
Mental processes of savage and 
civilized man, 8 
Mentality of races, see Intel- 
lect 
Methods, 1-28 
Migrations and environment, 
48-49 
Mink and the sun, tale of the, 
25-26 
Miscegenation, 10-12 
see also Hybrids 
Moities, 158 
see also Phratry 
Monarchial socialism of the 
Incas, 209 
Mongoloids and environment 
43—44 
diversity of culture, 66-67 
Monogamy, 146, 149, 177 
peoples practicing it, 135 


139, 


284 


Monotypical evolution, 14-17 
for marriage, 134-135 
Moral codes, 233 
see also Ethics 
Morgan, on the classificatory 
system, 143 
on savagery, barbarism and 
civilization, 16 
Mother-right and father-right, 
168-173 
Mourning customs, 123-124 
Mutilations and puberty, 102- 
104 
Nairs, polyandry among, 147- 
148 
Name, 95-98 
tabu of, 95-96, 124, 157, 159, 
196 
Navajo, tabu of 
woman, 221-222 
mother-in-law tabu, 174-175 
rites of the, 58-59 
Negro culture, 68, 79 
intelligence tests, 69-73 
Nordic hypothesis, 41-42, 63, 76 
North American tribes, de- 
scent, 170 
government, 200 
social classes, 194 
totemism, 186 
Northwest Coast of North 
America 
occupations, 194 
marriage as a purchase, 153 
social classes, 194-197 
potlatch system, 195-197 
tale of the mink and the sun, 
25-27 
Oath, 95-96 
as an ordeal, 220 
Occupations and classes, 194 
Omaha Indians, 110-112, 93 
camping circle, 187 
Ordeals of initiation, 104-109 
in law, 219-220 
Organic theory of society, 35-36 
Other world, 124-125 
Parent-in-law tabu, 174-175 


pregnant 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Parkman on the Iroquois Con- 
federation, 205-206 
Patriarchate, 133 
see also Patrilineal descent 
Patrilineal descent, 168-173 
Patrilocal residence, 173-174 
Patronymic groups, see Patri- 
lineal descent 
Perry, on Maya culture, 24 
mea and Pheebus Apollo, 
Phallic worship, 138-139 


- Phratry, 187-188 


Phylactery, 259 
Physical criteria of race, 63-64 
Physiological fact and socio- 
logical theory, 180 
fatherhood, 148 
birth, 93 
puberty, 99-100 
puberty and death, 102 
death, 114 
Physiology of races, 65 
Pigmentation and environment, 
44-45 
Piltdown man, 17 
Plato, on social groups, 180-181 
Plutarch, on burial by effigy, 
121-122 
on superstitions, 246-247 
Poison ordeal, 219 
Political organization, see Gov- 
ernment 
Polyandry, 146-148 
Polygamy, see Polygyny 
Polygyny, 148-149, 235 
Polynesia, government, 260 
tabu in, 221, 224 
Post hoc propter hoc, 254, 257 
Potlatch system of Northwest 
Coast, 195-197 
Preferential mating, 166-167 
Pregnancy, 89-91 
Primogeniture, 172 
Procreation, ignorance of, 89 
Progress, criteria of, 28-33 
Prohibitions, marriage, 155-156 
see also Exogamy and Tabu 





Social Origins and Social Continutties 


Promiscuity, sexual, 134 
arguments for and against, 
136-146 
as shown by 
terms, 140-144 
Property, 193 
destruction of, 197 
and descent, 171-172 
Psychic unity, 18 
Psychical effect of environ- 
ment, 45 
Psychology of races, 68 
Puberty, see Adolescence 
Public opinion, force of, 193, 
213, 217 
Pueblo peoples, environment, 
47 


relationship 


female prerogatives, 173-174 
name, 97 ; 

Pyle, on intelligence tests, 72- 
74 


Race and physical criteria, 63—- 
64 


Race-mixture, see Miscegena- 
tion 
Race prejudice, 78-79 
Racial psychology, 68 
Racial theory of culture, 41-42 
Rank, 192-197 
Ratzel, 42-43 
Recapitulation theory, 3 
Religion, 86, 93-94, 237 
and environment, 48 
and social classes, 194 
Residence of married pair, 173- 
174 
“Rites of passage,” 88-89 
Rivers, 27 
on cross-cousin marriage, 167 
on descent in Melanesia, 169- 
170 


on dual organizations, 187-188 

on junior right, 172 

on group-marriage, 135 

on mate of the Melanesians, 
114 

on relationship terms, 143-144 

on ruling class, 215-216 

on types of associations, 179 


285 


Robinson, on “minds” of civ- 
ilized man, 54-55 
on modernity of culture, 4-5 
Roman kings, descent of, 170 
Royalty, fallacious ideas of, 211 
Savage and civilized man, 54- 
57, 2, 236-237 
Secret society, 190-192, 112 
Segregation of the sexes, see 
en’s house 
PSS and elopement, 
] 


Semple, on grooves of travel, 49 
Senses of the savage, 57-59 
Service, marriage by, 152 
Sex in early society, 129-131 
Sexual communism, see Pro- 
miscuity 
Sexual tabu, 57, 235 
Shaman, 214 
Shapiro, work in Norfolk Is- 
land, 11-12 
Shaw, on civilization, 32 
on present marriage rite, 153 
Sib, see Clan 
Similarities of culture, 17-28 
Sister’s son, 171 
Slavery, 193, 195 
Smith, Elliot, theories of, 22-25 
Social classes, 192-197 
Social insects and human soci- 
ety, 12-14 
Social life and environment, 
46-47 
Social organization, 179-189 
Iroquois, 201-207 
Incas, 207-209 
Polynesians, 210 
Social solidarity, 181, 235-236 
Society, classifications of, 14 
geological argument on de- 
velopment, 15-16 
nature of savage, 35-37 
psychological theory of de- 
velopment, 38 
theory of origin of, 35-40 
and the social insects, 12-14 
Sororate, 176 
in England, 165 


286 


Specialization, physically and 
culturally considered, 29 
Speech, 36-37 f 
Herodotus and his experi- 
ment, 7-9 
Spencer, on the organic theory, 
35-36 
Spinden, on civilization in the 
tropics, 50 
Spiral ornament and migra- 
tions, 20 
Stature and environment, 6-7 
Stefansson, 50 
SADE OTY more than intellect, 
8 


Suggestibility of the savage, 
61-62 


Superstitions, 240 
classifications, 242 
origin of, 252 
of college students, 223-230, 
242-266 
Survivals, study of, as indicat- 
ing 
marriage by capture, 150-151 
promiscuity, 136-138 
Swanton, on exogamy among 
the Tlingit, 164 
Tabu, 221-225 
birth, 90-91 
name, 95-96, 124 
parent-in-law, 174-175 
puberty, 101 
sex and food, 57 
and totemism, 111, 186 
Polynesia, 200 
Tacitus, on the German tribes, 


~ 


Social Origins and Social Continuities 


Tar baby story, 20 

Terminology, danger of pre- 
cise, 184-185 

Tibet, polyandry in, 146-147 

Todas, polyandry among, 146- 
14 


8 
Totemism, 185-187, 192 
sex, 95-96 
see also Guardian spirit 
Trade, 19-20 
Trials, 219-220 
Tribe, 188 


_ Tropics and man, 50-51 


Tylor, on cross-cousin mar- 
riage, 166-167 
Unilinear evolution, see Mono- 
typical evolution 
Van Gennep, 99, 102 
on “rites of passage,” 88 
“Virtues,” 235-237 
Vocational guidance, 7 
Wallas, 13-14, 37 
on progress, 28-29, 32 
Warfare, 88, 215, 236 
Watson, on fear instinct, 55 
Webster, on puberty rites, 99, 
102 
Wergild, 219 
Westermarck, 135 
definition of marriage, 132 
Wheeler, on social insects, 12-13 
White man, his domination over 
the savage, 2, 236-237 
Wife-capture, 150-151 
Wife-purchase, 151-154 
Women, uncleanliness of, 90- 
91, 101 
prerogatives of, see Female 
prerogatives 


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